Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Creative Generation Task Under Stress: Comparison of a Stress Group with a Non-stress Group

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Digital Creativity

Part of the book series: Integrated Series in Information Systems ((ISIS,volume 32))

Abstract

A physiological approach was employed to study the relationship between stress and creativity using a controlled experiment. We needed an accurate situation in which stress could be objectively introduced to subjects. We measured subjects’ galvanic skin response (GSR) and electrocardiogram (ECG) while implementing creative generation tasks. In this experiment, two stress manipulations were used in one of two groups (a stress group versus a non-stress group). A questionnaire survey was also given to subjects as a supplementary measurement. The physiological signals and perceived stress scale (PSS) indicated that the stress group experienced mental stress during the experiment. Our results showed that self-reported creativity did not correspond with an assessment by experts of participants’ creativity. We did not find a statistically significant relationship between stress and creativity in our experiment. In future studies of creativity under stress, we propose that researchers consider other factors and surroundings that may affect stress and creativity using various approaches, such as physiological and bioinformatical experiments, in order to shed light on inconsistent findings in the literature.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Amabile, T.M., Goldfarb, P., Brackfield, S.C.: Social influences on creativity: Evaluation, coaction, and surveillance. Creativity Res. J. 3(1), 6–21 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Amabile, T.M.: A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. Res. Organ. Behav. 10, 123–167 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Amabile, T.M.: Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity. Westview Press, Boulder, CO (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Anderson, N., De Dreu, C.K.W., Nijstad, B.A.: The Routinization of innovation research: A constructively critical review of the state-of-the-science. J. Organ. Behav. 25(2), 147–173 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Andrews, F.M., Farris, G.F.: Time pressure and performance of scientists and engineers: A five-year panel study. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 8(2), 185–200 (1972)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Avey, J.B., Luthans, F., Hannah, S.T., Sweetman, D., Peterson, C.: Impact of employees’ character strengths of wisdom on stress and creative performance. Hum. Res. Manage. J. (2011). doi:10.1111/j.1748-8583.2010.00157.x

  7. Baer, J.R.: Gender differences in the effects of extrinsic motivation on creativity. J. Creative Behav. 32(1), 18–37 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Baer, M., Oldham, G.R.: The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: Moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity. J. Appl. Psychol. 91(4), 963–970 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Baron, R.S.: Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 19, 1–39 (1986)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Bernardi, L., Wdowczyk-Szulc, J., Valenti, C., Castoldi, S., Passino, C., Spadacini, G., Sleight, P.: Effects of controlled breathing, mental activity, and mental stress with or without verbalization on heart rate variability. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 35(6), 1462–1469 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Bogdan, R., Pizzagalli, D.A.: Acute stress reduces reward responsiveness: Implications for depression. Biol. Psychiatry 60(10), 1147–1154 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bunce, D., West, M.: Changing work environments, innovative coping responses to occupational stress. Work Stress 8(4), 319–331 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Byron, K., Khazanchi, S., Nazarian, D.: The relationship between stressors and creativity: A meta-analysis examining competing theoretical models. J. Appl. Psychol. 95(1), 201–212 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Cohen, S., Williamson, G.: Perceived stress in a probability sample of the United States. In: Spacapan, S., Oskamp, S. (eds.) The Social Psychology of Health. Sage, Newbury Park, CA (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., Mermelstein, R.: A global measure of perceived stress. J. Health Soc. Behav. 24, 386–396 (1983)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Cohen, S., Kessler, R., Gordon, L.: Measuring Stress—A Guide for Health and Social Scientists. Oxford University Press, New York (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Darrow, C.: The rationale for treating the change in galvanic skin response as a change in conductance. Psychophysiology 1(1), 31–38 (1964)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Dise-Lewis, J.E.: The life events and coping inventory: An assessment of stress in children. Psychosom. Med. 50, 484–499 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Drazin, R., Glynn, M.A., Kazanjian, R.K.: Multilevel theorizing about creativity in organizations: A sensemaking perspective. Acad. Manage. Rev. 24(2), 286–307 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Drwal, R.L.: The influence of psychological stress upon creative thinking. Pol. Psychol. Bull. 4, 125–129 (1973)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Dubin, D.: Rapid Interpretation of EKG’s. Cover Publishing, Tampa, Florida (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Ellis, A.P.J.: System breakdown: The role of mental models and transactive memory in the relationship between acute stress and team performance. Acad. Manage. J. 49(3), 576–589 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Eysenck, H.J.: Genius: The Natural History of Creativity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA (1995)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  24. Ford, C.M.: A theory of individual creative action in multiple social domains. Acad. Manage. Rev. 21(4), 1112–1142 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Gardner, D.G.: Activation theory and task design: An empirical test of several new predictions. J. Appl. Psychol. 71(3), 411–418 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. James, L.R., Demaree, R.G., Wolf, G.: rWG: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. J. Appl. Psychol. 78, 306–309 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Jex, S.M., Beehr, T.A., Roberts, C.K.: The meaning of occupational stress items to survey respondents. J. Appl. Psychol. 77(5), 623–628 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Koh, K., Park, J., Kim, C., Cho, S.: Development of the stress response inventory and its application in clinical practice. Psychosom. Med. 63, 668–678 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Kugelmass, S., Lieblich, I.: Effects of realistic stress and procedural interference in experimental lie detection. J. Appl. Psychol. 50(3), 211–216 (1966)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Landon, P.B., Suedfeld, P.: Complex cognitive performance and sensory deprivation: Completing the U-curve. Percept. Mot. Skills 34(2), 601–602 (1972)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. LePine, J.A., Podsakoff, N.P., LePine, M.A.: A meta-analytic test of the challenge stressor-hindrance stressor framework: An explanation for inconsistent relationships among stressors and performance. Acad. Manage. J. 48, 764–775 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Marsh, R.L., Landau, J.D., Hicks, J.L.: How examples may (and may not) constrain creativity. Mem. Cognit. 24(5), 669–680 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. McGraw, K.O., Wong, S.P.: Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients. Psychol. Methods 1, 30–46 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Nicol, J.J., Long, B.C.: Creativity and perceived stress of female music therapists and hobbyists. Creativity Res. J. 9(1), 1–10 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Oldham, G.R., Cummings, A.: Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Acad. Manage. J. 39, 607–634 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Pelz, D.C.: Creative tensions in the research and development climate. In: Katz, R. (ed.) Managing Professionals in Innovative Organizations: A Collection of Readings, pp. 37–48. Ballinger, New York (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Ritvanen, T., Louhevaara, V., Helin, P., Vaisanen, S., Hanninen, O.: Responses of the autonomic nervous system during periods of perceived high and low work stress in younger and older female teachers. Appl. Ergon. 37, 311–318 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Salas, E., Driskell, J.E., Hughes, S.: Introduction: The study of stress and human performance. In: Driskell, J.E., Salas, E. (eds.) Stress and Human Performance. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Shalley, C.E., Gilson, L.L., Blum, T.C.: Interactive effects of growth need strength, self-reported creative performance. Acad. Manage. J. 52(3), 489–505 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Shalley, C.E., Gilson, L., Blum, T.C.: Matching creativity requirements and the work environment: Effects on satisfaction and intentions to leave. Acad. Manage. J. 43(2), 215–223 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Siegel, S., Castellan, N.J.: Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Schumacher, J.S.: Constraining effects of examples in a creative generation task. Mem. Cognit. 21(6), 837–845 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Teichner, W.H., Arees, E., Reilly, R.: Noise and human performance: A psychophysiological approach. Ergonomics 6(1), 83–97 (1963)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Van der Kar, L.D., Blair, M.L.: Forebrain pathways mediating stress induced hormone secretion. Front. Neuroendocrinol. 20, 41–48 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Yerkes, R.M., Dodson, J.D.: The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. J. Comp. Neurol. Psychol. 18(5), 459–482 (1908)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Zhong, X., Hilton, H.J., Gates, G.J., Jelic, S., Stern, Y., Bartels, M.N., DeMeersman, R.E., Basner, R.C.: Increased sympathetic and decreased parasympathetic cardiovascular modulation in normal humans with acute sleep deprivation. J. Appl. Physiol. 98(6), 2024–2032 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2009-342-B00015).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SKK Business School, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, 110-745, Republic of Korea

    Dae Sung Lee & Nam Yong Jo

  2. Department of Interaction Science, SKK Business School, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, 110-745, Republic of South Korea

    Kun Chang Lee

Authors
  1. Dae Sung Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kun Chang Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nam Yong Jo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kun Chang Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Myung Ryun, Chong No-Ku 3-53, Seoul, 110-745, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Kun Chang Lee

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lee, D.S., Lee, K.C., Jo, N.Y. (2013). A Creative Generation Task Under Stress: Comparison of a Stress Group with a Non-stress Group. In: Lee, K. (eds) Digital Creativity. Integrated Series in Information Systems, vol 32. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5749-7_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5749-7_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5748-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5749-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation