prevention focus and creative performance: Is it moderated by evaluative stress?

Personality and Individual Differences 105 (2017) 185–193

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Promotion/prevention focus and creative performance: Is it moderated by evaluative stress?☆ Lulu Liu, Ling Wang ⁎, Jingyuan Ren, Chenyang Liu Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 19 March 2016 Received in revised form 11 September 2016 Accepted 27 September 2016 Available online xxxx Keywords: Creativity Evaluative stress Moderator Regulatory focus

a b s t r a c t Previous research has produced contradictory findings about the impact of regulatory focus on individual creativity, particularly for a prevention focus. These studies focused on how regulatory focus affects creativity in combination with evaluative stress. We hypothesized that these effects would depend on what type of stress was situationally induced. Study 1 comprised 209 undergraduate students (138 females) with a mean age of 20.13 years (SD = 1.22) from Beijing, China. Study 2 comprised 221 high school students (133 females) with a mean age of 16.21 years (SD = 1.01) from Beijing, China. Results indicated that under social-evaluative stress (Study 1), promotion-focused cues produced more original ideas than did prevention-focused cues. Moreover, under self-evaluative stress (Study 2), the effects of regulatory focus on creativity were moderated by self-evaluative stress. Specifically, in the higher self-evaluative stress condition, participants with a chronic prevention focus enhanced in fluency in prevention-focused states relative to promotion-focused states. In contrast, in the lower self-evaluative stress condition, participants with chronic promotion focus increased in originality in promotion-focused states relative to prevention-focused states. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Two motivational systems have been proposed to attain a desired outcome: promotion focused and prevention focused (Higgins, 1997, 1998). The promotion-focused system is typically oriented towards achieving positive end-states and encourages individuals to focus on growth and nurturance. In contrast, the prevention-focused system is typically oriented towards avoiding negative end-states and directs individuals' attention towards security and duties. Regulatory focus theory also differentiates between a chronic and a situational focus. There are individual differences in the chronic tendency to be promotion- or prevention-oriented. On the other hand, context factors in a specific situation (e.g., ideals vs. oughts, gains vs. losses) could induce a promotion or a prevention focus (Freitas, Liberman, & Higgins, 2002; Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986; Roney, Higgins, & Shah, 1995; Shah, Higgins, & Friedman, 1998).

2. Regulatory focus and creative performance As demonstrated by prior studies, regulatory focus has implications for one's cognition, emotions, goal pursuit, and task performance ☆ This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31100757). ⁎ Corresponding author at: Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100080, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Wang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.09.054 0191-8869/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

(Brodscholl, Kober, & Higgins, 2007; Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997; Shah & Higgins, 1997; Shah et al., 1998). Various studies have expressed concern with the potential impact that regulatory focus has on creativity. It is generally assumed that being promotion focused bolsters creativity more than being prevention focused does, although, to date, research has not arrived at precise conclusions (Bittner & Heidemeier, 2013; Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Friedman & Förster, 2000, 2001; Herman & Reiter-Palmon, 2011; Lam & Chiu, 2002). Crowe and Higgins (1997) examined the contribution of situationally induced regulatory focus to cognitive performance by asking participants to work on an anagram task. They found that promotion-focused participants generated more solutions than prevention-focused participants did. Friedman and Förster (2001) further investigated this relation with a “pencil-and-paper maze” task, which was initially used to induce a situational regulatory focus. The results showed that promotion cues facilitated both creative insight and divergent thinking relative to prevention cues. Besides situationally induced self-regulatory cues, individuals with a chronic tendency to be promotion-oriented could generate more solutions than those with a chronic tendency to be preventionoriented (Lam & Chiu, 2002). It is reasonable to assume from existing research that creativity benefits from a promotion focus rather than from a prevention focus. However, some research has expanded on this concept by investigating the positive side of a prevention/avoidance motivation (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011; Freitas, Liberman, Salovey, et al., 2002; Roskes, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2012). Earlier research argued that prevention-focused participants would prefer to initiate action earlier and pursue their valued

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L. Liu et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 105 (2017) 185–193

goal even when the expectancy of goal attainment was relatively low, as prevention-focused states rendered the current events to be experienced as necessities; therefore, individuals did not want to be sidetracked by potential distractions (Freitas, Liberman, Salovey, et al., 2002; Lam & Chiu, 2002). Baas et al. (2011) examined the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity within the context of regulatory closure (i.e., whether a goal is fulfilled or not). Prevention-focused individuals in the unfulfilled prevention goals condition were as creative as the promotion-focused ones. These findings suggest that effects of regulatory focus on creative performance may be more complicated than it seems, and it is fruitful to explore under what types of conditions a promotion or prevention focus would benefit creativity. Past research is helpful for understanding the underlying causes of a self-regulatory focus on creativity. Baas et al. (2011) indicated that activation mediated the effects of the regulatory focus and regulatory closure on creativity. More specifically, activating moods including activating promotion and prevention-related moods, led to a higher level of creativity than deactivating moods such as relaxed and neutral moods did. Studies on the mood–creativity link have also demonstrated that activating moods are more likely to boost creativity than are deactivating moods (for a review, see Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008). Further evidence shows that better creative performance emerges when individuals are activated, regardless of whether regulatory focus is concerned with promotion or prevention (Baas et al., 2011; De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008). On the other hand, based on activation theory, a medium degree of stress is most favorable to task performance than an extremely high or extremely low degree, particularly for complicated tasks such as creative tasks (Gardner, 1990). As a major source of stress, evaluative stress can increase arousal and/or activation level (Byron, Khazanchi, & Nazarian, 2010). This may provide a valuable insight into the link between regulatory focus and creativity. Evaluative stress, whether social- or self-evaluative, is likely to exert psychological distress and distract the individuals' attention from the task due to fear of negative evaluation by others (Burke, 1991; Byron et al., 2010; Silvia & Phillips, 2004; Thoits, 1991). Social-evaluative stress “occurs when an aspect of self is or can be negatively judged by others” (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004, p. 358), whereas self-evaluative stress stems from the threat of comparing oneself with others (Mussweiler & Bodenhausen, 2002). In fact, social- and self-evaluative stressors are co-dependent. The social environment is important in the formation and development of the self. As evaluation is made by the individual, self-assessment is often based on comparison with an external standard. On the other hand, social- and self-evaluation are different in important aspects such as concept correlation and pressure intensity. First, research has indicated that self-evaluation has a weak direct correlation with social-evaluation, whereas reflected evaluation (i.e., a person's perception of how others see and evaluate him/her) is significantly related to self-evaluation (Bois, Sarrazin, Brustad, Chanal, & Trouilloud, 2005; Hergovich, Sirsch, & Felinger, 2002). Second, although the potential for social-evaluation and self-evaluation can motivate task performance, the impetus could be different. Harkins and colleagues investigated the roles of internal and external sources of evaluation on a creative task (i.e., generating uses of objects). Their findings suggested that when both evaluative conditions are presented, participants are highly influenced by experimenter evaluation instructions, whereas they did not respond to the instructive prescriptions of self-evaluation (Harkins, White, & Utman, 2000). That is, two sources of evaluative stress were not equally powerful for creative performance, as the potential for social-evaluation overpowered the potential for self-evaluation.

and situational self-regulatory focus on creative tasks were observed. We predicted that the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity depended on different evaluation sources. When faced with social-evaluative stress, a promotion focus may have stronger endurance than a prevention focus. Similar studies on approach/avoidance motivation suggest that avoidance motivation is related to controlling information processing, which requires cognitive resources and drains energy. Moreover, approach motivation is associated with heuristic and flexible information processing that is much more independent of top-down executive control (Koch, Holland, & van Knippenberg, 2008; Roskes, Elliot, Nijstad, & De Dreu, 2013; Roskes et al., 2012). Another investigation on the effects of prevention focus under stereotype threat revealed that when the threat of failure occurs, being prevention focused would initiate additional cognitive control resources to avoid failure (Ståhl, Van Laar, & Ellemers, 2012). Therefore, any endogenous or exogenous variables that drain cognitive resources can undermine cognitive performance among avoidance/prevention motivation more than approach/promotion motivation (Roskes et al., 2013). Hypothesis 1. Promotion-focused states would be more beneficial to creativity than prevention-focused states; high social-evaluative stress would be more beneficial to creativity than low social-evaluative stress. Social-evaluative stress and regulatory focus would yield no interaction effect on creativity. The classic theory of Yerkes-Dodson law presumes that cognitive performance is correlated with stress in a curvilinear way. Consistent with this argument, activation theory proposes that cognitive functions related to creative enhancement, such as cognitive flexibility and persistence, working memory, and sustained attention, can be facilitated more at moderate levels of activation than under extremely low or extremely high levels of activation (Byron et al., 2010; De Dreu et al., 2008). Accordingly, we hypothesized that under self-evaluative stress (moderate pressure), promotion-focused and prevention-focused individuals would be capable of showing their advantages. Prior research has argued that individuals who are promotion-focused have a more flexible processing style (Baas et al., 2011; Förster & Dannenberg, 2010; Friedman & Förster, 2001, 2002); however, individuals who are prevention-focused tend to adopt a persistent processing style and invest more cognitive efforts to compensate for these deficiencies (Roskes et al., 2012). According to the dual pathway to creativity model, flexible and persistent processing styles are distinctive pathways to increase creative output (De Dreu et al., 2008; Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel, & Baas, 2010). Hypothesis 2. Self-evaluative stress is more apt to moderate the relation between regulatory focus and creativity. Specifically, under low self-evaluative stress, a promotion focus is better for creativity; under high self-evaluative stress, a prevention focus is better for creativity. In these studies, both chronic and situationally induced regulatory focuses were involved to probe their fit effect on the creative task. Previous research on regulatory fit reported that the compatibility of chronic and situationally induced self-regulatory mechanisms would lead to enhanced performance on anagram tasks (Förster, Higgins, & Idson, 1998; Shah et al., 1998), mathematical reasoning, and spatial tests (Keller & Bless, 2006). Hypothesis 3. Conformity of chronic and situationally induced regulatory focus will result in increased creative performance.

4. Study 1 3. Current studies and assumptions 4.1. Participants and design This study investigated the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity in combination with social-evaluative stress (Study 1) and self-evaluative stress (Study 2). Furthermore, the effects of chronic

Participants were 209 undergraduate students (71 males, 138 females) with a mean age of 20.13 years (SD = 1.22) from a university

L. Liu et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 105 (2017) 185–193

in Beijing, China. Participants majored in various subjects, except for psychology. Each participant signed an informed consent form before the test and received a gift for participating after the test. They were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions: state promotion focus/high social-evaluation, state prevention focus/high social-evaluation, state promotion focus/low social-evaluation, and state prevention focus/low social-evaluation. The number of subjects in each condition was 52, 52, 50, and 55, respectively. Dependent variables were creative performance as reflected in fluency, flexibility, and originality.

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4.3.5. Creativity task The “tin cans task” in the Torrance tests of creative thinking (Torrance, 1966) was used to measure creative performance. In this task, participants were asked to think of and list as many interesting and unusual uses of tin cans as they could in 7 min. Participants' responses were rated by three psychology graduate students according to well-established guidelines (Torrance, 1974). Three indexes including fluency, flexibility, and originality were evaluated and scored; the inter-rater reliabilities were 0.99, 0.97, and 0.96, respectively. 4.4. Results

4.2. Procedure Participants were first asked to complete the Regulatory Focus Scale to measure trait regulatory focus. After that, they were told that there was a pencil-and-paper maze game to play before the formal test. In fact, playing the game was meant to induce one's state regulatory focus (see Materials, Friedman & Förster, 2001). Then, they were distributed into one of the four experimental conditions at random and were asked to read the designated evaluation instruction for 2 min. Finally, they completed the creative task in 7 min, and a manipulation check questionnaire was administered. 4.3. Materials 4.3.1. Regulatory focus scale The Regulatory Focus Scale (Fellner, Holler, Kirchler, & Schabmann, 2007) was used to measure trait regulatory focus. The scale has been shown to be reliable and valid in China (Zhang, 2010). It contained two subscales: promotion focus and prevention focus, and 33 items (17 promotion items, 16 prevention items) were used in this survey. The alpha coefficients of the promotion and prevention subscales were 0.68 and 0.75, respectively. 4.3.2. Induced situational regulatory focus A regulatory focus state was induced through a pencil-and-paper maze task (Friedman & Förster, 2001). In this task, participants were asked to draw a route map leading out of the maze. More specifically, participants in the promotion-cue condition were asked to help the mouse go out to eat the cheese that was outside the maze exit; participants in the prevention-cue condition aimed to escape from an eagle quickly. The two types of motivation (i.e., “seeking nurturance” and “seeking security”) were activated by the maze task. 4.3.3. Social-evaluative stress instructions Social-evaluative stress was manipulated using the method of Bartis, Szymanski, and Harkins (1988). Participants in the high-evaluation group were informed that the study was concerned with individual achievement. After this experiment, their work would be sent to an expert in creativity and scored rigorously. Team members of the study then collected all the creative scores and ranked them. Two weeks later, the scores and ranks would be sent to participants through email. In contrast, participants in the low-evaluation group were told that the study focused on the overall level of all participants. Two weeks later, they would receive the average score of all participants through email. 4.3.4. Manipulation checks To test the effectiveness of the social evaluation manipulation, questionnaire items that were adapted from the check items of Shalley (1995) were administered after the creativity task. Each participant was asked to respond to the following items: “I felt as though I was competing with others on this task,” and “I felt a great sense of pressure in this task.” The response format was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

4.4.1. Manipulation checks As expected, for the item “I felt as though I was competing with others on this task,” participants under high social-evaluative stress reported higher scores (M = 6.34, SD = 0.77) than did those under low stress (M = 2.99, SD = 0.74, t = 9.57, p b 0.01). For the item “I felt a great sense of pressure in this task,” participants under high social-evaluative stress scored higher (M = 6.73, SD = 0.70) than did those under low stress (M = 3.01, SD = 0.81, t = 10.21, p b 0.01). Therefore, the manipulation was effective in temporarily creating social-evaluative stress. 4.4.2. Effects of trait regulatory focus, situational regulatory focus, and social-evaluative stress on creativity The problem with the traditional scoring of flexibility and originality scores is that the scores on these two dimensions are highly correlated with the fluency score (i.e., number of responses). Therefore, an individual who generates more ideas will obtain higher originality and flexibility scores (Hocevar & Michael, 1979; Runco, Okuda, & Thurston, 1987). As shown in Table 1, fluency was highly correlated with flexibility (r = 0.85, p b 0.01) and originality (r = 0.80, p b 0.01). Therefore, to control for the influence of fluency on flexibility and originality, we adopted a percentage scoring method and used the mean originality score and mean flexibility score instead of the original ones (Hocevar, 1979: Hocevar & Michael, 1979; Runco & Albert, 1985; Runco & Mraz, 1992). Specifically, the traditional originality scores or flexibility scores were divided by the fluency score (number of ideas). Several studies on divergent thinking have adopted this technique (De Dreu, Nijstad, Baas, Wolsink, & Roskes, 2012; Jauk, Benedek, Dunst, & Neubauer, 2013; Zenasni & Lubart, 2009), and it has shown good discriminative validity (Mouchiroud & Lubart, 2001), convergent validity, and predictive validity (Plucker, Qian, & Wang, 2011). In addition, this scoring method appears to have better validity than the traditional scoring technique (Plucker et al., 2011). The correlation matrix revealed that social-evaluative stress was positively correlated with fluency and mean originality. Induced state regulatory focus and mean originality were significantly positively correlated, and trait regulatory focus was not significantly correlated with each dimension of creativity. The scores of chronic regulatory focus were calculated by subtracting the prevention average score from the promotion average score (Appelt, Zou, Arora, & Higgins, 2009; Bohns & Higgins, 2011). The scores of all participants thus showed a continuum from negative to positive. Positive scores represented the trend of trait promotion, whereas negative scores represented the trend of trait prevention. In Study 1, trait promotion scores were significantly positively correlated with total scores (r = 0.66, p b 0.01), and trait prevention scores had a significant negative correlation with total scores (r = −0.75, p b 0.01). A hierarchical regression analysis was then conducted. As shown in Table 1, three components of creativity (fluency, mean flexibility, and mean originality) were closely intercorrelated. Therefore, we adopted the covariance analysis method used in previous studies (James, 1995; Osburn & Mumford, 2006; Ritter et al., 2012; Speller & Schumacher, 1975; Zhang, Zhang, & Zhang, 2014a, 2014b). Specifically, when one dimension was set as the dependent variable, the other two dimensions were entered into the first block of the hierarchical regression.

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Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and item inter-correlations for the variables in Study 1.

1. Social-evaluative stress 2. State regulatory focus 3. Trait regulatory focus 4. Fluency 5. Flexibility 6. Originality 7. Mean flexibility 8. Mean originality

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

0.53 0.47 0.08 13.75 9.67 9.85 0.73 0.68

0.50 0.50 0.86 5.16 2.94 6.29 0.14 0.27

–

−0.05 –

−0.05 0.06 –

0.19⁎ 0.10 0.09 –

0.13 0.11 0.15 0.85⁎⁎ –

0.24⁎⁎ 0.19⁎ 0.07 0.80⁎⁎ 0.67⁎⁎ –

−0.11 −0.01 −0.03 −0.60⁎⁎ −0.13 −0.43⁎⁎ –

0.22⁎⁎ 0.21⁎ 0.04 0.33⁎⁎ 0.32⁎⁎ 0.78⁎⁎ −0.10 –

N = 209 (2-tailed). ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.

Therefore, in step 1, two other dimensions of creativity were entered. In step 2, trait regulatory focus, state regulatory focus, and social-evaluative stress were entered. In step 3, the centered interaction terms (two-way interactions: trait regulator focus × social-evaluative stress, trait regulatory focus × state regulatory focus, and state regulatory focus × social-evaluative stress; and three-way interactions: trait regulatory focus × state regulatory focus × social-evaluative stress, respectively) were entered. The regression results are presented in Table 2. The analysis showed no main effects or interactions for fluency or flexibility. However, on the originality dimension, step 2 of the model accounted for a significant portion of the accounted variance (ΔR2 = 0.06, p b 0.05). Furthermore, there was a significant main effect of state regulatory focus (β = 0.18, p b 0.05). Participants in the state promotion group (M = 0.74, SD = 0.28) had higher originality scores than did those in the state prevention group (M = 0.63, SD = 0.26). The main effect of social-evaluative stress was also significant (β = 0.18, p b 0.05). Participants under high socialevaluative stress (M = 0.74, SD = 0.25) scored higher on originality than did those under low stress (M = 0.62, SD = 0.28).

studies with Chinese participants (Qu & Shi, 2005; Zhang, Wang, Yu-Xia, & Xu, 2011). Earlier research revealed that when time is unlimited, participants under evaluation spend longer on creative tasks as compared to a comparison group (Amabile, 1996). The amount of time participants spend voluntarily reflects their internal motivation towards the immediate task, which is a great promoter for creativity (Amabile, 1983). However, this study did not find a significant interaction between social-evaluative stress and regulatory focus. The results revealed that the promotion-focused states were more creative than were the prevention-focused states, regardless of whether the evaluative stress from others (i.e., experts in creativity) was high or low. To test the effects of evaluative stress further, self-evaluative stress, as a more moderate form of evaluative stress, was manipulated in Study 2 to explore the links between regulatory focus and creativity from the perspective of self-evaluative stress.

4.5. Summary and discussion of Study 1

5.1. Participants and design

Study 1 showed that for the dimension of originality, a state promotion focus could boost creativity more than a state prevention focus could. This finding is consistent with earlier work and theoretically supports the view that promotion-focused cues induce a more risky, explorative processing style than do prevention-focused cues (Friedman & Förster, 2001). This study also revealed that the originality under higher stress was better than that under lower stress. This finding implies that the manipulation of social-evaluative stress might promote creative performance. This conclusion is similar to those of earlier

Participants were 221 high school students (88 males, 133 females) with a mean age of 16.21 years (SD = 1.01) from a high school in Beijing, China. The indices of creativity were the same as those in Study 1. Each participant signed an informed consent form before the test and received a gift for participating after the test. They were randomly assigned to the four experimental conditions: state promotion focus/ high self-evaluation, state prevention focus/high self-evaluation, state promotion focus/low self-evaluation, and state prevention focus/low self-evaluation. The number of subjects for each experimental condition

5. Study 2

Table 2 Hierarchical regressions of the three dimensions of creativity on trait regulatory focus, state regulatory focus, and social-evaluative stress. Predictors

Step 1 Fluency Mean flexibility Mean originality Step 2 Trait regulatory focus State regulatory focus Social-evaluative stress Step 3 Trait regulatory focus × Social-evaluative stress Trait regulatory focus × State regulatory focus State regulatory focus × Social-evaluative stress Trait regulatory focus × State regulator focus × Social-evaluative stress ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎⁎ p b 0.001 (2-tailed).

Mean flexibility

Fluency β

ΔR2 0.43⁎⁎⁎

−0.57⁎⁎⁎ 0.27⁎⁎⁎

β −0.63⁎⁎⁎

0.36⁎⁎⁎

β 0.41⁎⁎⁎ 0.14

0.10 0.01

0.06 0.05 0.09

0.12⁎⁎⁎

0.01 0.18⁎ 0.18⁎ 0.002

0.01 0.03 0.02 0.03

ΔR2

0.06⁎

0.002 0.02 0.04 -0.01

0.01 −0.05 −0.04 0.05 −0.08

Mean originality ΔR2

0.003 0.001 −0.05 0.03 0.02

L. Liu et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 105 (2017) 185–193

was 54, 57, 56, and 54, respectively. Dependent variables were creative performances as reflected in Study 1.

Table 3 Means, standard deviations, and item inter-correlations for the variables in Study 2. 1 2

5.2. Procedure The procedure in Study 2 was similar to that in Study 1, except the manipulation of the evaluation and the manipulation checks, such that social-evaluative stress was replaced with self-evaluative stress. 5.3. Materials The assessment of trait regulatory focus, the task inducing a situational regulatory focus, and the creative task were the same as those used in Study 1. 5.3.1. Self-evaluative stress instructions Self-evaluative stress was manipulated based on the method of Szymanski and Harkins (1992). Standardized instructions were designed to manipulate the levels of self-evaluative stress. In the high self-evaluative stress condition, participants were told that they would know their exact score through a scoring manual of the test. In addition, the norm had been established so that they could draw a comparison between their scores and the test norm. On the contrary, participants in the low self-evaluative stress condition were informed that they would not know how their score compared to others scores because the norm had not been established. We regret this and we will attempt to determine the norm in the future. 5.3.2. Manipulation checks Three items were compiled to check the effectiveness of the selfevaluation manipulation. Participants were asked to make a choice on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The items were as follows: (1) the norm for the test could not be provided because it had not been established, (2) I could know my exact score on the test, but could not know its meaning because the experimenter could not provide the norm to me, and (3) completing this test made me understand my thinking level as it fits in the crowd. 5.4. Results 5.4.1. Manipulation checks The effect of the self-evaluation manipulation was tested by three items. In line with expectations, for the first item, the scores showed a significant difference between the low self-evaluative stress condition (M = 6.43, SD = 0.31) and the high self-evaluative stress condition (M = 1.90, SD = 0.29, t = 10.57, p b 0.01). For the second item, participants under low self-evaluative stress reported higher scores (M = 6.56, SD = 0.47) than did those under high self-evaluative stress (M = 2.48, SD = 0.67, t = 10.36, p b 0.01). For the third item, participants high self-evaluative stress scored higher (M = 6.39, SD = 0.56) than did those under low self-evaluative stress (M = 2.35, SD = 0.66, t = 9.58, p b 0.01) did. The t-test results showed that the manipulation of self-evaluative stress was effective. 5.4.2. Effects of trait regulatory focus, situational regulatory focus, and selfevaluative stress on creativity As shown in Table 3, a correlation matrix indicated that the three creativity dimensions were highly correlated with each other. The analytical methods used in the current study were similar to those used in Study 1. In this study, trait promotion scores were positively correlated with total scores (r = 0.64, p b 0.01), and trait prevention scores were negatively correlated with total scores (r = −0.72, p b 0.01). Three multiple regression analyses with each dimension of creativity as the dependent variable on (1) the main effects of the controlling variables (the two other dimensions of creativity aside from the dependent variable in the present regression model); (2) the main effects of trait

189

1. Self-evaluative stress 2. State regulatory focus 3. Trait regulatory focus 4. Fluency 5. Flexibility 6. Originality 7. Mean flexibility 8. Mean originality

3

4

5

6

7

– 0.00 0.07 −0.11 −0.06 −0.11 0.04 –

8 −0.05

0.05 0.07

0.08

0.00

−0.04

−0.14⁎

–

0.08

0.11

0.10

−0.02

0.12

–

0.83⁎⁎ –

0.85⁎⁎ 0.71⁎⁎ –

−0.64⁎⁎ −0.18⁎⁎ −0.55⁎⁎ –

0.29⁎⁎ 0.22⁎⁎ 0.70⁎⁎ −0.21⁎⁎ –

N = 221 (2-tailed). ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.

regulatory focus, state regulatory focus, and self-evaluative stress; and (3) the interaction terms (two-way interactions: trait regulatory focus × self-evaluative stress, trait regulatory focus × state regulatory focus, and state regulatory focus × self-evaluative stress; and threeway interactions: trait regulatory focus × state regulatory focus × selfevaluative stress, respectively) were performed. Similar to Study 1, a mean flexibility score and a mean originality score were used to control for the influence of fluency. Before calculating the interaction terms, trait regulatory focus was standardized. The results for these models are depicted in Table 4. 5.4.3. Effects on fluency The results showed no two-way interaction; however, there was a significant three-way interaction between trait regulatory focus, situational regulatory focus, and self-evaluative stress (β = 0.11, t = 2.05, p b 0.05). To illustrate the significant three-way interaction effect, two multiple regressions were conducted using self-evaluative stress as a categorical variable, denoting either high or low self-evaluative stress. Specifically, under high self-evaluative stress, a regression model was constructed with fluency score as the dependent variable for the main effects of trait regulatory focus and state regulatory focus and their two-way interaction, controlling for mean flexibility and mean originality. The same analysis was performed for low self-evaluative stress. Results showed that there was no significant effect under low selfevaluative stress; however, there was a marginally significant interaction of trait regulatory focus × state regulatory focus under high selfevaluative stress (β = 0.89, t = 1.80, p = 0.07). Next, the simple slope test described by Aiken and West (1991) was performed. As shown in Fig. 1, under high self-evaluative stress, participants with a trait prevention focus trend performed more fluently in the state prevention condition than did those in the state promotion condition (β = − 1.46, t = 2.14, p b 0.05). However, a trait promotion focus trend was impervious to state regulatory focus (β = 0.32, t = 0.50, ns). Therefore, the graphic form was consistent with our prediction. 5.4.4. Effects on flexibility As shown in Table 4, there were no significant interaction effects (two- or three-way interaction), and the main effects of the independent variables were not significant. 5.4.5. Effects on originality The regression model for originality in Table 4 revealed a marginally significant three-way interaction of trait regulatory focus, situational regulatory focus, and self-evaluative stress (β = −0.13, t = 1.91, p = 0.057). The two-way interaction analyses were conducted in the same way as when fluency was the dependent variable. Specifically, under high self-evaluative stress, a regression model was created so that originality score was the dependent variable for the main effects of trait

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Table 4 Hierarchical regressions of the three dimensions of creativity on trait regulatory focus, state regulatory focus, and self-evaluative stress. Predictors

Mean flexibility

Fluency ΔR2

β Step 1 Fluency Mean flexibility Mean originality Step 2 Trait regulatory focus State regulatory focus Self-evaluative stress Step 3 Trait regulatory focus × Self-evaluative stress Trait regulatory focus × State regulatory focus State regulatory focus × Self-evaluative stress Trait regulatory focus × State regulatory focus × Self-evaluative stress

0.45⁎⁎⁎ −0.62⁎⁎⁎ 0.17⁎⁎⁎

β −0.65⁎⁎⁎

0.43⁎⁎⁎

β 0.29⁎⁎⁎ −0.02

−0.01 0.01

0.04 0.06 −0.07

0.09⁎⁎⁎

0.11 −0.16⁎ −0.04 0.01

−0.06 0.05 0.01 0.06

ΔR2

0.04⁎

0.002 0.03 −0.01 −0.03

0.02 −0.09 0.03 0.03 0.11⁎

Mean originality ΔR2

0.02 0.03 0.06 −0.02 −0.13⁎

⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎⁎ p b 0.001 (2-tailed).

regulatory focus and state regulatory focus and their two-way interaction, controlling for fluency and mean flexibility. For low self-evaluative stress, the model was identical except for the data used. A further analysis showed that under high self-evaluative stress, there was no significant interaction effect. Results also showed that step 2 of the model explained a significant portion of the variance (Δ R2 = 0.06, p b 0.05). Further, the main effects of trait regulatory focus (β = 0.05, t = 2.01, p b 0.05) and state regulatory focus (β = −0.05, t = 1.97, p = 0.05) were significant, though they were significant in opposite directions. Participants with a trend of trait promotion (M = 0.87, SD = 0.23) had higher originality scores than did those with a trend of trait prevention (M = 0.65, SD = 0.23). Participants in the state prevention focus group (M = 0.86, SD = 0.27) scored higher on originality than did those in the state promotion focus group (M = 0.77, SD = 0.24). Under low self-evaluative stress, the analysis revealed a marginally significant interaction between trait regulatory focus and state regulatory focus (β = 0.05, t = 1.89, p = 0.06). Next, a simple slope test was conducted. As seen in Fig. 2, under low self-evaluative stress, promotion-focused participants had higher originality scores in the state promotion condition than did those in the state prevention condition (β = 0.09, t = 1.89, p = 0.06, marginal significance). However, trait prevention focus was impervious to one's state regulatory focus (β = −0.01, t = 0.32, ns).

The work of Lam and Chiu (2002) implies that trait promotion focus could increase fluency, but has no distinct effect on originality. However, our results found that participants with a trait promotion focus were

more original than those with a trait prevention focus were; however, there was no difference in the number of alternative uses. The regression analyses above revealed a significant interaction between self-evaluative stress, trait regulatory focus, and state regulatory focus on creativity. In particular, when the level of self-evaluative stress was high, participants with a trait prevention focus performed more fluently in the state prevention condition than did those in state promotion condition, whereas individuals with a trait promotion focus were not significantly affected by state regulatory focus. When the level of self-evaluative stress was low, promotion-focused participants showed more originality in the state promotion condition than did those in the state prevention condition, whereas participants with a trait prevention focus were not affected by their state regulatory focus. The results revealed that fluency was enhanced by a high level of self-evaluative stress, whereas originality was increased by a low level of self-evaluative stress. Perhaps this was because increased motivation facilitated the performance of simple tasks, but undermined the performance of complicated tasks (Martens & Landers, 1972; Seta, Paulus, & Schkade, 1976). Direct evidence on this phenomenon was demonstrated by Bartis et al. (1988). Participants were first assigned to a number instructions group (generate as many uses as possible for a common object) or an originality instructions group (generate a use for a common object that was as creative as possible). Next, they were assigned to either an evaluation condition or a non-evaluation condition. The results showed that for the number instruction group, the participants' performance was facilitated by the evaluative situation; however, for the originality instruction group, participants assigned to the non-evaluation condition performed better. Another point we should note was the fit (or compatibility) effect between the chronic and situational regulatory focus on creative

Fig. 1. Interaction effects of trait regulatory focus and state regulatory focus on fluency under high self-evaluative stress.

Fig. 2. Interaction effects of trait regulatory focus and state regulatory focus on originality under low self-evaluative stress.

5.5. Summary and discussion of Study 2

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performance. This finding was consistent with the results of previous studies with different tasks such as anagrams, mathematical ability, and spatial ability (Förster et al., 1998; Keller & Bless, 2006; Shah et al., 1998). The mechanisms underlying regulatory fit effects are discussed in two different ways. One interpretation concerns the motivation, stating that individuals' motivation for tasks will be increased in the regulatory fit condition as compared to the non-fit conditions (Higgins, 2000; Shah et al., 1998). Another interpretation of lower creativity in a non-fit condition is presumably related to the reduction of cognitive resources. In a condition with cognitive discrepancies, participants need to exert additional effort to solve these discrepancies, thus leading to low contributions to cognitive tasks (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Macrae, Hewstone, & Griffiths, 1993). 6. General discussion These studies investigated the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity in combination with social-evaluative stress (Study 1) and self-evaluative stress (Study 2). As we expected, Study 1 indicated that promotion cues could significantly improve originality in comparison with prevention cues, regardless of the level of socialevaluative stress. Study 2 revealed that the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity was moderated by the level of self-evaluative stress. Specifically, participants with trait prevention focus showed higher fluency under prevention-focused cues as compared to promotion cues, whereas participants with trait promotion focus showed higher originality under promotion-focused cues as compared to prevention-focused cues. First, both studies implied that promotion-focused states could increase the originality of creative output. This is likely because promotion-cue participants adopted a more “risky processing style,” which could lead to better creative performance (Friedman & Förster, 2001). Another study that referred to an arm's flexor and extensor contraction on creative tasks supported this notion by indicating that the more explorative processing style elicited by arm flexion was more beneficial to creativity than the more risk-averse, perseverant processing style elicited by an arm extension (Friedman & Förster, 2002). [Note: the motor action of arm flexion caused a bodily response associated with approaching positive stimuli, while an arm extension could induce a bodily response associated with avoiding negative stimuli (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993)]. Furthermore, the fact that promotion-focused states led to more creativity than prevention-focused states was primarily through increased access to novel responses and global processing styles (Baas et al., 2008; Förster & Higgins, 2005; Friedman & Förster, 2001). Second, these studies indicated that when the level of self-evaluative stress was high, prevention focus states could enhance fluency more than promotion focus states could. This perseverance may have accounted for much of the increase in the prevention state relative to that of the promotion state. The importance of perseverance in the face of obstacles for creative endeavors has been reiterated by Sternberg and Lubart (1995), and an earlier study supported this view by suggesting that a prevention focus may promote creativity (typically for fluency) through persistence (Lam & Chiu, 2002). Why could prevention focus states increase fluency rather than originality? Perhaps this occurred because originality was a predictor of creativity quality, whereas fluency (i.e., the number of responses) was a predictor of creativity quantity (Kim, 2006). Fluency could be improved by enhanced motivation and continued efforts, while originality may not be improved under these conditions. In addition, a prevention focus may elicit “a negative reference point, thereby increasing one's subjective valuation of an event.” When the task was framed as an obligation, the incentive to avoid negative consequences from not being capable of reaching the task goal could lead an individual to persist in doing it until the end of the task (Freitas, Liberman, Salovey, et al., 2002, p. 128).

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Furthermore, it can be assumed from the studies that social- and self-evaluative stresses are likely to provide different contributions to the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity. The discrepancy between social- and self-evaluative stresses should be interpreted to explain the variability in the effects. As previously mentioned, the two sources of motivations were not equally powerful for creativity as the potential of social-evaluative stress far exceeded the potential of selfevaluative stress. Under the great strength of social-evaluative stress, participants in promotion-focused states were able to hold out for its strong endurance. On the other hand, when the outputs were individually evaluated, both being promotion focused and prevention focused played positive roles for enhancing creativity. As the strength for external sources was weakened, the potential of self-evaluation began to manifest. Further evidence came from Bandura's (1986) remarks, “When environmental constraints are reduced, the influence of self-evaluative motivators becomes most self-evident” (p. 479). According to social comparison theory, self-evaluation could function as a motivational factor for task performance, and the potential for self-evaluation would motivate individuals to do their best. This was partly due to the need for acquiring self-knowledge about one's ability and the need for improving self-validation (to do better than others were). In addition, the limitations of the research are noteworthy. One potential limitation is the participants' heterogeneity in the two studies. College students were recruited for Study 1, and high school students were recruited for Study 2. The age difference (average age difference of 3.92 years) may cause problems in interpreting the results. Moreover, the studies were limited to students; therefore, future work could explore this problem in the workplace. Another possible limitation is that the creative task used in these studies was a generation task; therefore, whether the results can be extended to other creative tasks such as insight tasks, remains to be determined. It is important to note that the study was administrated in China; therefore, the conclusions require further investigation for possible culture differences. Cross-cultural differences in self-regulatory systems generally show that Eastern cultures (mostly East-Asian cultures) are considered to be more prevention oriented than Western cultures are, whereas Western cultures are considered to be more promotion oriented (Kurman & Hui, 2011; Lalwani, Shrum, & Chiu, 2009; Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000). Future studies should further explore this question in different cultures. Although previous research has demonstrated the benefits of a promotion focus, the function of prevention focus for creativity has been controversial. These studies provided some insight into the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity from the perspective of evaluative stress. In addition, these studies provide advice for education and business practitioners. Our results suggest that individuals with trait promotion or prevention focus are dissimilar in their endurance towards an evaluative situation. Furthermore, an induced regulatory focus could be an important method for influencing creativity. This study observed that people who experience a promotion cue might perform better in a social-evaluation condition, whereas in a self-evaluation condition, each state self-regulatory focus has different merits for creativity.

Appendix A The instructions of the social-evaluative stress (high level) Hi, A cognitive task will be assigned to you. Please accomplish it within the specified time and take it seriously. We intend to determine the personal achievement of all students on this task. After the survey, several experts will be invited to assess your task performance and give you a score. Moreover, we will compare your score with the scores of other participants to obtain a ranking.

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Two weeks later, your score on the cognitive task and personal ranking will be sent to your email address. Please check it carefully. The instructions of the social-evaluative stress (low level) Hi, A cognitive task will be assigned to you, please accomplish it within the specified time and take it seriously. We intend to know the overall level of all students on this task. After the survey, the average score will be automatically calculated through a scoring system. Two weeks later, the average score of all students will be sent to your email address. Please check it carefully. The instructions of the self-evaluative stress (high level) Hi, A cognitive task will be assigned to you. Before beginning, please read the following contents carefully (especially the parts in bold). We have the scoring manual of the task; therefore, your exact score on the test will be obtained. More importantly, the test norm (the scores of a representative group against what a score is compared) of college students has also been established; therefore, you can compare your score with age-and sex-matched population. After the survey, if you want, we will send the norm to you through email. The instructions of the self-evaluative stress (low level) Hi, A cognitive task will be assigned to you. Before beginning, please read the following contents carefully (especially the parts in bold). We have the scoring manual of the task; therefore, your exact score on the test will be obtained. Unfortunately, the test norm (the scores of a representative group against what a score is compared) of college students has not been established; therefore, you cannot compare your score with age-and sex-matched population. After the survey, if you want, we will send the scoring manual to you through email.

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