Thinking Outside the Box with a Fixed Mindset? All You Need Is to Believe in Yourself. The Moderating Role of Creative Self-Efficacy on the Relationship between Implicit Theories of Creativity and Creative Behavior

Ana-Maria Hojbotă

Past research documented an association between holding certain views about abilities and behavioral outcomes. However, results of studies trying to document this relationship in the creative domain have been mixed or complicated [Karwowski, 2014, Makel, 2008]. The present work aims to contribute on disentangling the links between implicit theories of creativity and creative outcomes, namely the performance in creative tasks and the intensity of self-reported creative behaviors. While failing to find direct associations between immutability beliefs and creative outcomes, we tested whether confidence in one’s own creative performance moderates this relationship. Confirming our expectations, data obtained on two different samples using self-report measure of creativity (Study 1, N=192) and a set of divergent thinking tasks (Study 2, N=198), suggests that the relationship is statistically significant only for lower levels of creative self-efficacy. In other words, moderate and high levels of creative self-efficacy could protect respondents from the negative effects of adopting a fixed mindset.

creative self-efficacy, divergent thinking, implicit theories

ANA-MARIA HOJBOTĂ – “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi

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