Dual pathways in creative writing processes.

Abstract

The current study combines 2 related, yet distinct, lines of research demonstrating that (a) creative cognition is supported by both associative and executive abilities (i.e., dual-process perspective), and (b) individual differences may influence creative outcomes through 2 distinct processes (i.e., dual pathway to creativity model). We fill several gaps within both lines of research by examining how individual differences in executive and associative abilities predict creative writing through processes related to persistence and effort. Tasks assessing Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) broad abilities (Gf, Glr, and Gc), semantic distance, and creative writing were administered to a total sample of 209 young adults. A multivariate multiple mediation model in the path analytic framework shows that creativity was directly predicted by an indicator of associative ability (semantic distance) and indirectly predicted by several of the CHC broad cognitive abilities through processes related to persistence and effort (i.e., length of text and time-per-word). Specifically, persistence and effort fully mediated the relationship between creative writing and performance on several tasks assessing fluid reasoning, comprehension knowledge, and long-term storage and retrieval. Together, the model explained 40% of the variance in text length, 33% of time-per-word, and 65% of creativity (Consensual Assessment Technique-based scores). We discuss how these results are not only consistent with previous work demonstrating an association between both executive and associative abilities with creativity, but also provide evidence for the dual pathway model in the generation of creative products and support the role of persistence and effort in creative writing.

The relationship of divergent thinking with broad retrieval ability and processing speed: A meta-analysis

“…Second, due to the presence of meta-analyses covering the relationship between DT and major cognitive abilities from the CHC framework (Gerwig et al, 2021;Gerver et al, 2022), as well as predominant reliance on DT tasks as measures of cognitive creative potential Long, 2014;Long et al, 2022), creativity researchers may be interested in shifting to other-perhaps more ecologically valid and domain-specific-measures of creative potential and to study the interaction of intelligence and creativity under more realistic conditions (see also Yang et al, 2022). For example, there are some exemplars in the field, including studies on creative drawing, writing, humor production, and jazz improvisation (Avitia & Kaufman, 2014;Beaty et al, 2013;Kellner & Benedek, 2017;Smith et al, 2022;Taylor & Barbot, 2021). Overall, our metaanalysis demonstrated that fast and effective access to memory are fundamental cognitive capacities for creative thinking.…”

Can persistence improve creativity? The effects of implicit beliefs about creativity on creative performance.

“…De Dreu et al (2008) found that participants in mood states conducive to using the persistence pathway spent substantially more time on a creative insight task than those in mood states conducive to using the flexibility pathway. Thus, because the persistence pathway requires a comparatively greater amount of time to generate and find creative solutions (Acar & Runco, 2014; De Dreu et al, 2008), Taylor et al (2021) and Taylor and Barbot (2021) have shown that cognitive effort can be operationalized in terms of time spent working on a task. Beliefs are not necessarily conscious on a regular basis, but rather are formed implicitly and are often unknowingly linked to behavior (Dweck, 2006).…”

“…Note that, in this study, the quality (creativity as rated by others) and quantity (number of ideas) of ideas were used as indicators of creative performance. In Study 3, we followed Taylor et al (2021) and Taylor and Barbot (2021) and captured cognitive effort from the time spent working on the UUT.…”

“…We also tested the mechanism by which they did so. As we followed Taylor et al (2021) and Taylor and Barbot (2021), and used time spent engaged in creative task as a measure of cognitive effort, we did not set a time limit for participants’ engagement in creative tasks in Study 3. We hypothesized that participants in the experimental group who received instructions on the importance of persistence in creativity would engage in the creativity task over time, thus improving their creative performance (quantity and quality of ideas) (H3).…”