Effects Of The Characteristics Of The Tasks And Cognitive Styles On The Relationship Of Emotion And Creative Performance

Creativity is the ability of generating new and unique products with practical value (Sternberg, 2005). Creativity can be understood as a stable trait or ability, also be understood as performance inspired by scenarios. Early creativity studies tended to consider it as a trait, and the aim of these studies were to reveal differences between individuals creativity. Recent studies of creativity tend to see it as an expression of creativity and take it as an action level related to the situation, living environment, culture and other social contexts with varying characteristics. So more research focused on what factors will create a more profound impact on creative performance. Among the factors influencing the creative performance, emotion is the predictive variable of creative performance studied most in the study of social psychology (Mumford, 2003). Emotion is the experience of the attitudes organism has on objective things in activities (Frijda, 1993; Huang et al., 2007; Ye et al., 1997; Zhu et al., 1989). It often accompanied the process of thinking, thereby affecting the creative performance. Hence, it has been a hot research topic examined from the emotional perspective on creative performance in recent years. But the studies on the relationship of emotion and creativity found the results between studies were inconsistent. It was found that the impact of emotion on creativity is background dependent, that is, the impact of emotion on creative performance s directly linked to the characteristics of the task people engaged in and individuals'characteristics. Namely, the characteristics of the task and individuals'characteristics moderate the relationship between emotion and creative performance.In recent years, researchers found that creativity is not only field specific but also task specific (Kaufman, 2009; Runco, Illies, & Eisenman, 2005), namely, the characteristics of the task affect individuals'creative performance (Antes & Mumford, 2009; Davis, 2008; George & Zhou, 2002; Kuvass & Selart, 2004; Reiter-Palmon, Cross, Buboltz, & Nimps, 2009). Special tasks may promote or inhibit the impact of emotion on creativity (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008; George & Zhou, 2002, 2007; Kaufmann, 2003). Cognitive style refers to the personalized and consistent ways individuals shown in the organization and processing of information (Tennant, 1988). Research shows that cognitive styles have a direct impact on the creative performance. Existing theories have some assumptions and inference of the impact of cognitive style and emotion on creative performance. The theory of interaction of personality and background considered that the individuals with some personality were more inclined to think that some information the background characteristics provided were valuable and showed higher creative performance when these characteristics appeared. Prediction of emotion on creativity may be influenced by the characteristics of individuals or characteristics of the task. The results of examinations on the relationship between emotions and creativity ignoring these two factors will be unrealistic due to lack of ecological validity.The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of the task on the relationship between emotions and creative performance from the external conditions, and then select the stable individual differences- cognitive style from the perspective of the individual to examine its impact on the relationship between emotion and creative performance and its mechanism, the final investigated the interaction of task characteristics and cognitive style on the relationship between emotion and creative performance by combination of subjective and objective factors.This paper designed preparatory studies and formal researches based on previous studies on the relationship of emotion and creative performance for these purpose with normal university students as subjects, Preparatory study completed three tasks: the improvement of methods of evaluation to creativity; revision of cognitive style measurement tools (REI scale); test the validity of the materials for emotion induction. The preparatory study provided the tools and experimental materials for the formal study. The formal study had three studies and four experiments. Study 1 examined the impacts of the interactive features of the task on the relationship of emotion and creative performance; Study 2 investigated the impacts and mechanisms of the cognitive styles on the relationship of emotion and creative performance including two experiments. Experiment 2a studied the impact of the cognitive styles on the relationship of emotion and creative performance and experiment 2b studied their mechanisms; Study 3 examined the interactive effects of the characteristics of the task and cognitive styles on the relationship of emotion and creative performance. The experimental materials included the revised questionnaire of cognitive styles, the emotions evoked materials (film video and music clips), the questionnaire for emotion evaluation (Bradley et al., 1994) and creative tasks. These studies found that: First, the characteristics of the task impact the relationship of emotion and creative performance. In the framework and the structure of the task characteristics, the task characterized by the framework is the task factors affect that relationship. Specifically, individuals in a positive emotion showed better creative performance than the individuals in a negative emotion in the tasks framed as interesting; but in the tasks framed as serious, the creative performance of individuals in a positive emotion and the individuals in a negative emotion had no difference.Second, The nature of emotion (positive or negative) and cognitive styles (intuitive or rational) has no effect on creative performance as a single variable. But the interaction between cognitive styles and emotion has an effect on the creative performance. That is, cognitive styles affected the relationship between emotion and creative performance. Specifically, the individuals with typical intuitive style in a positive emotion performed better than in a negative emotion, the individuals with typical rational style in a negative emotion performed better than in a positive emotion.Third, cognitive styles affected the mechanisms of the relationship between emotion and creative performance. Specifically, in a positive emotion, intuitive cognitive style promoted the creative performance through the mediator role of cognitive flexibility, while in a negative emotion, rational cognitive style promoted the creative performance through the mediator role of cognitive persistence.Fourth, the interaction of the characteristics of the task and cognitive style affected the relationship between emotion and creative performance. Specifically, the effect of intuitive style on the relationship between emotion and creative performance on will not be affected by the framework of the task. That is, the individuals with intuitive style in a positive emotion performed better than in a negative emotion regardless the task was framed as interesting or serious; the effect of rational style on the relationship between emotion and creative performance on was affected by the framework of the task. The individuals with rational style in a positive emotion performed better than in a negative emotion when the task was framed as interesting; but when the task was framed as serious, they performed better in a negative emotion than in a positive emotion.These studies could get the following conclusions.(1) The impact of emotion on the creative performance is task specific, the framework of the task affects the relationship. (2) Cognitive styles affect the relationship between emotion and creative performance.(3) Cognitive styles affect the mechanism of emotion on creative performance.(4) The interaction of task characteristics and cognitive styles affect the relationship between emotion and creative performance. This thesis obtained important results and new findings on the basis of study and has important theoretical significance for intensification the relationship of emotion and creative performance also has practical significance for combining individual traits and task characteristics to guide individuals'emotion for the improvement of creative performance in practice.