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We investigated the relationships between creative achievement, cognitive ability, temperament, and vocational interests using a large and diverse Internet-based sample. Ten creative domains (visual arts, music, creative writing, dance, drama, architecture, humor, scientific discovery, inventions, culinary arts) were positively associated with higher cognitive ability, intellect, and extraversion and lower agreeableness. Regarding cognitive ability, there was no evidence for the threshold effect on achievements. Regarding age, younger individuals endorsed a greater number of low-level achievements and older individuals endorsed more high-level achievements across the 10 creative domains. Other characteristics of individual differences (e.g., vocational interests) were more domain-specific for predicting creative achievement. We also introduce a revised method for the assessment and scoring of creative achievements and discuss suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent findings in psychological research have begun to illuminate cognitive and neural mechanisms of imagination and mental imagery, and have highlighted its essential role for a number of important outcomes, including outcomes relevant for the study of psychopathology and psychotherapy. Scientific study of imagination, however, has been constrained by the virtue of being framed mainly as an ability for mental imagery. Here we propose that imagination is a widespread phenomenon that we all engage in, and which affects a wide range of important outcomes beyond more commonly studied constructs like creativity. Thus, the Four-Factor Imagination Scale (FFIS) focuses on features of the imaginative process, and measures imagination in terms of individual differences in those features, including frequency, complexity, emotional valence, and directedness of imagination. Study 1 consisted of construct elicitation and generation of a large pool of candidate survey items. Study 2 (N = 378) conducted exploratory quantitative analysis on the preliminary pool of candidate items in a larger sample, revealing four distinct factors of the designed items. Study 3 (N = 10,410) confirmed the structure of the preliminary items, and reported internal consistency and unidimensionality, as well as convergent and discriminant validity of the resultant scales. The FFIS confirms that imagination is multi-faceted in nature, and is better approached as a constellation of more narrowly measurable constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness improves people's functioning in many areas, but its relationship with creativity is equivocal. To assess the link between mindfulness and creativity, we present a multilevel meta-analysis of 89 correlations obtained from 20 samples in studies published between 1977 and 2015 and demonstrate a statistically significant, but relatively weak correlation ( r = .22) between these two constructs. This effect was moderated by the type of mindfulness, being significantly lower in case of the awareness aspect of mindfulness, than in the case of the open-monitoring aspect. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dopaminergic (DA) system may be involved in creativity, however results of past studies are mixed. We attempted to clarify this putative relation by considering the mediofrontal and the nigrostriatal DA pathways, uniquely and in combination, and their contribution to two different measures of creativity–an abbreviated version of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, assessing divergent thinking, and a real-world creative achievement index. We found that creativity can be predicted from interactions between genetic polymorphisms related to frontal (COMT) and striatal (DAT) DA pathways. Importantly, the Torrance test and the real-world creative achievement index related to different genetic patterns, suggesting that these two measures tap into different aspects of creativity, and depend on distinct, but interacting, DA sub-systems. Specifically, we report that successful performance on the Torrance test is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with good cognitive flexibility and medium top-down control, or with weak cognitive flexibility and strong top-down control. The latter is particularly true for the originality factor of divergent thinking. High real-world creative achievement, on the other hand, as assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with weak cognitive flexibility and weak top-down control. Taken altogether, our findings support the idea that human creativity relies on dopamine, and on the interaction between frontal and striatal dopaminergic pathways in particular. This interaction may help clarify some apparent inconsistencies in the prior literature, especially if the genes and/or creativity measures were analyzed separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the major theories of creative cognition pre-date the cognitive revolution in psychology. There is, thus, great potential in using modern cognitive assessments to understand the differential creativity of individuals. In this study, creativity was assessed in terms of originality, fluency, flexibility, and past creative achievements. The same individuals (N = 102) completed a random number generation (RNG) task in two conditions: one (a baseline condition) in which there were no instructions to produce a random sequence and a second (an ability condition) in which such instructions were administered: Two components of departures from randomness-Prepotent Associates (shorter-term violations of random responding, such as using Consecutive numbers more often) and Repetition of Responses (longer-term violations of random responding by repeating the same number over intervening trials)-were quantified. Prepotent Associates in the ability condition negatively predicted fluency and flexibility. On the other hand, Repetition of Responses in the baseline condition positively predicted originality and self-reported creative achievements. Results are discussed in terms of the unique processing substrates likely to underlie different creativity Outcomes, as well as the utility of modeling such processes in terms of temporal trends in thought patterning, as can be assessed in RNG tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Dominance-submission has been linked to verticality in studies of metaphor, judgment, and online processing. In all cases, dominance has been associated with higher locations in vertical space, whereas submission has been associated with lower locations in vertical space. The present studies sought to extend this class of vertical metaphors to individual differences in spatial attention. Two studies were conducted. In both, dominance-submission was assessed as an individual difference variable and covert spatial attention tasks were used to assess biases in vertical selective attention. As predicted, dominant individuals were faster to respond to higher spatial probes, whereas submissive individuals were faster to respond to lower spatial probes. These results reinforce a vertical theory of dominance-submission, importantly extending it to individual differences and basic processes of selective attention. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of embodiment, metaphor, personality, and attention. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present study used functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) to examine the role of focused attention in divergent thinking and real-life creativity. Participants completed a Navon task, on which the stimuli consisted of a large letter made up of the smaller version of the same (congruent), or a different (incongruent) letter. Participants were cued to identify a letter at either the local or at the global level. A smaller congruency effect - how much faster people responded on the congruent than on the incongruent trials - was an index of focused attention. Overall, larger behavioral congruency effect was accompanied with increased activation in the anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG), and with increased activation in the left precuneus. Individual differences in divergent thinking, however, were associated with smaller behavioral congruency effect, as well as with smaller right aSTG increase on the incongruent versus congruent targets, suggesting that people with better performance on the divergent thinking tests have more focused attention. Real-world creativity was not associated with the congruency effect, or with any of the regions implicated in the congruency effect. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]