Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, People's Republic of China.
School of Mental Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou Zhejiang, 325035, People's Republic of China.
eNeuro. 2023 Sep 19;10(9). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0127-23.2023. Print 2023 Sep.
Creativity can be driven by negative intentions, and this is called malevolent creativity (MC). It is a type of creativity that serves antisocial purposes and deliberately leads to harmful or immoral results. A possible classification indicates that there are three kinds of MC in daily life: hurting people, lying, and playing tricks. This study aimed to explore similar and distinct neural substrates underlying these different kinds of MC idea generation. The participants were asked to perform different MC tasks, and their neural responses were recorded using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy device. The findings revealed that most regions within the prefrontal and temporal lobes [e.g., the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), and right angular gyrus] were involved in the three MC tasks. However, the right frontopolar cortex (rFPC) was more activated and less coupled with the rDLPFC and right precuneus during the lying task than during the other tasks. Thus, rFPC may play an important role in constructing novel lies. In the lying task, individuals were more selfish and less compassionate. In the playing tricks and hurting people tasks, there was less neural coupling between the rDLPFC and the left inferior frontal gyrus/right inferior parietal lobule than that in the lying task. This may imply that selfish motivation is released when individuals try to ignore victims' distress or generate aggressive tricks in hurting people or playing tricks tasks. These findings indicate that the three kinds of MC idea generation involve common cortical regions related to creative idea generation and moral judgment, whereas differences in cortical responses exist because of their unique features.
创造力可以受到负面意图的驱动，这被称为恶意创造力（MC）。它是一种为反社会目的服务的创造力，故意导致有害或不道德的结果。一种可能的分类表明，日常生活中有三种 MC：伤害他人、撒谎和耍花招。本研究旨在探索这些不同类型的 MC 创意产生背后相似和独特的神经基础。要求参与者执行不同的 MC 任务，并使用功能近红外光谱设备记录他们的神经反应。研究结果表明，前额叶和颞叶内的大多数区域[例如，右侧背外侧前额叶皮层（rDLPFC）和右侧角回]参与了这三种 MC 任务。然而，在撒谎任务中，与其他任务相比，右侧额极（rFPC）被激活更多，与 rDLPFC 和右侧楔前叶的耦合更少。因此，rFPC 可能在构建新颖的谎言方面发挥重要作用。在撒谎任务中，个体更加自私，同情心较少。在耍花招和伤害他人的任务中，rDLPFC 与左侧额下回/右侧顶下小叶之间的神经耦合比在撒谎任务中少。这可能意味着，当个体试图忽略受害者的痛苦或在伤害他人或耍花招任务中产生攻击性的诡计时，自私的动机就会释放出来。这些发现表明，三种 MC 创意产生都涉及与创意产生和道德判断相关的共同皮质区域，而皮质反应的差异是由于其独特的特征造成的。
