An Eye-Tracking Analysis of Irrelevance Processing as Moderator of Openness and Creative Performance

Abstract

Openness has been identified as one of the personality traits with stronger association to creativity into the Five-Factor Model of personality. But what are the psychological mechanisms that relate Openness and creative performance? The present paper aims at responding to this question, exploring in particular whether the attentional processing of apparently irrelevant information (irrelevance processing) can act as a moderator within the relation between Openness and creativity. To this aim, a visual version of the Unusual Uses Task was developed and, using an eye-tracker methodology, the attentional processing of both information that is central to the task, and information that is ''apparently'' irrelevant for its execution was measured. The results showed a moderating effect of irrelevance processing on the role of Openness in both creative achievement and originality of the uses produced by the participants, with creativity reaching higher levels in individuals who gave attention to irrelevant information and were characterized by a high level of Openness. These findings establish attentive processing as a central psychological mechanism to explain the relationship between Openness and creativity.We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious . . . and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

Interaction of the originality of peers’ ideas and students’ openness to experience in predicting creativity in online collaborative groups

“…Likewise, students who were low in openness to experience did not show greater creativity in the group collaboration, even when exposed to a relatively high number of peers’ original ideas. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, with regard to both the fluency and originality components of creativity (Agnoli et al, ; Peterson et al, ). This result can be interpreted in light of earlier research showing that students with high openness and students with low openness differ in their use of attentional resources while performing creative tasks (Agnoli et al, ; Peterson et al, ).…”

“…These results are consistent with those of previous studies, with regard to both the fluency and originality components of creativity (Agnoli et al, ; Peterson et al, ). This result can be interpreted in light of earlier research showing that students with high openness and students with low openness differ in their use of attentional resources while performing creative tasks (Agnoli et al, ; Peterson et al, ). The assumption in these studies was that students with high openness were more creative because they had greater access to varied ideas and absorbed unrelated information, whereas students with low openness did not absorb varied ideas (Baer et al, ; Luse et al, ).…”

“…This result was consistent with the SIAM model (Nijstad & Stroebe, ). The SIAM model suggested that an idea consists of a central concept, features of that concept and associations with the concept; peers’ ideas could activate problem‐relevant knowledge, inspiring creative ideas via the associative nature of memory (Agnoli et al, ; Baruah & Paulus, ). Our results support these assumptions.…”

“…Knowledge activation is cue dependent; peers’ ideas could act as cues to activate problem‐relevant knowledge. Because of the associative nature of memory, the originality of peers’ ideas determines what knowledge is activated (Agnoli et al, ). Peers’ original ideas lead other group members to retrieve less accessible knowledge and spark other creative ideas in the stage of idea production (Nijstad & Stroebe, ).…”

“…In addition, students' openness to experience (broad mindedness, curiosity and originality; Costa & McCrae, 1992) appears to promote acceptance of peers' ideas (Baer, Oldham, Jacobsohn, & Hollingshead, 2008;Schilpzand, Herold, & Shalley, 2010). Students who are high in openness to experience have been shown to be more sensitive to peers' ideas in group contexts; they have also been shown to pay more attention to external and surface-unrelated information, and this information may foster creativity (Agnoli, Franchin, Rubaltelli, & Corazza, 2015;Luse, McElroy, Townsend, & DeMarie, 2013).…”