Breaking from the typical focus on the antecedents of creativity, we investigate the psychological and interpersonal consequences of being creative. Across five experiments, we find that generating creative ideas is revealing of the self and thus prompts the perception of self-disclosure. Individuals respond to the expectation to be creative with greater self-focus—adopting their own idiosyncratic perspective on the task and thinking about their own personal preferences and experiences in connection to the problem. Because creative ideas derived from self-focused attention are uniquely personal, the act of sharing a creative idea is, in turn, perceived to be revealing of the self. Finally, an interactive dyad study shows that sharing creative ideas makes partners more confident in the accuracy of judgments they made about each other’s personality. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research investigating the consequences of creativity.

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Norms regulate and direct behavior in groups, but the role that norms play in the creative process has been controversial. This chapter develops a theoretical perspective in which norms are tools that can be leveraged to facilitate creativity in teams. It begins by identifying a set of five key behaviors that support creative collaboration—the PIECE(s) of team creativity—Participation, Independence, Elaboration, Communication, and Exploration. It then identifies specific norms that can encourage the emergence of each of the five critical behaviors, the conditions that make these norms salient, and the underlying psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which norms impact creativity. It also reviews recent and growing evidence suggesting that strengthening creativity-relevant norms with the threat of overt social sanctions can encourage the emergence of behavior appropriate to the task of being creative and thus facilitate, rather than thwart, creative collaboration. Finally, it concludes with suggestions for future research on norms in creative work groups.

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