University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2019 Nov;45(11):1590-1602. doi: 10.1177/0146167219838551. Epub 2019 Mar 31.
History is rife with examples of the dark side of creativity-ingenious weapons, novel torture practices, and creative terrorist attacks-yet its psychological origins are sparsely addressed and poorly understood. Building on work showing that social threat induces focused thinking as well as aggressive cognitions and readiness to fight, we propose that threats lead to more malevolent creativity and less creativity in threat-irrelevant domains. Prisoner's dilemma games were modified to evoke threat of exploitation. Participants then generated novel brick uses (Study 1, = 113) or negotiation tactics (Study 2; = 79). High (vs. low) social threat led to more "malevolent" creativity (e.g., using bricks as weapons; using intimidation as negotiation tactic). Social threat reduced nonthreat-related creative ideation only in Study 1. Study 2 showed that the increase of malevolent creativity was due to the motivation to defend and aggress, and emerged especially among individuals with a high need for cognition.
历史上充斥着创造力阴暗面的例子——巧妙的武器、新颖的酷刑实践和创造性的恐怖袭击——但其心理起源却鲜有提及，也理解得很差。基于表明社会威胁会引起集中思维以及攻击性认知和准备战斗的工作，我们提出威胁会导致更恶意的创造力和威胁不相关领域的创造力降低。囚犯困境游戏被修改以引起剥削的威胁。然后，参与者生成新的砖块用途（研究 1，n=113）或谈判策略（研究 2；n=79）。高（与低）社会威胁导致更多的“恶意”创造力（例如，将砖块用作武器；将恐吓用作谈判策略）。社会威胁仅在研究 1 中减少了与非威胁相关的创造性思维。研究 2 表明，恶意创造力的增加是由于防御和攻击的动机，并且尤其出现在认知需求高的个体中。
