Research Article

Automatic effects of deviancy cues on creative cognition

  1. Jens Förster1,*,
  2. Ronald S. Friedman2,
  3. Eva B. Butterbach3,
  4. Kai Sassenberg4

Article first published online: 17 JUN 2005

DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.253

Issue

European Journal of Social Psychology

European Journal of Social Psychology

Volume 35, Issue 3, pages 345–359, May/June 2005

Additional Information

How to Cite

Förster, J., Friedman, R. S., Butterbach, E. B. and Sassenberg, K. (2005), Automatic effects of deviancy cues on creative cognition. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 35: 345–359. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.253

Author Information

  1. 1

    International University Bremen, Germany

  2. 2

    University of Missouri Columbia, USA

  3. 3

    Universität Würzburg, Germany

  4. 4

    Universität Jena, Germany

*International University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, PO Box 750561, D-28725 Bremen, Germany.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 17 JUN 2005
  2. Article first published online: 17 JUN 2005
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 8 OCT 2004
  4. Manuscript Received: 4 OCT 2004

Funded by

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Grant Number: FO-244/6-1
  • University of Missouri-Columbia
  • National Institute of Mental Health. Grant Number: MH72669-01

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Abstract

Three experiments test the existence of an automatic deviancy-creativity link. Using a lexical decision task, in Experiment 1 we found a semantic link between deviancy and creativity words in that decision times for creativity-related words were enhanced after subliminal deviancy priming. In Experiment 2, participants were led to think about either a punk or an engineer and afterwards were administered creative insight and analytical reasoning problems. According to a pretest, punks and engineers were judged as differing in uniqueness but not in creativity. Participants given ‘punk’ priming solved more creative insight problems and fewer analytical reasoning problems than those given ‘engineer’ priming. In Experiment 3, participants were incidentally exposed to abstract artworks symbolically expressing either the concept of conformity or deviancy and were subsequently asked to solve a creative generation task. Exposure to the artwork representing deviancy led to generation of more creative solutions than exposure to that representing conformity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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