UNLOCKING CREATIVITY: HOW THE ROLE OF MINDSETS OF CREATIVITY AND GOAL FRAMINGS DRIVE MOTIVATION FOR CREATIVITY

Abstract

The present study investigates how motivation for future creativity development is influenced by mindsets of creativity and the contextual variable of goal framings. Three measures of motivation were used namely persistence, attitudinal and behavioural motivation. 336 participants were randomly assigned under either one of the goal framing conditions (To date or To-go) and were given bogus feedback on their creativity progress according to these framings. Subsequently, participants underwent the Alternate Uses Task (AUT). Main analysis showed a significant main effect of mindsets on motivation, but no statistical significance was obtained for the interaction effect between mindsets and goal framings on motivation. Follow-up exploratory analysis thus focused on uncovering the underlying mechanisms contributing to behavioural motivation. Through path analysis, it was revealed that the relationship between creative mindsets and behavioural motivation is fully mediated by attitudinal motivation such that individuals with a growth mindset of creativity are more likely to show behavioural motivation only when they present with high intentionality for creativity development in the future.