The Relationship Between Creativity And Morality: The Perspective Of Individuals And Groups

Contradictory points showed in the relationship between creativity and morality in past studies.Whether they were irrelevant,positive or negative correlation had its own theoretical assumptions and empirical research supports.Based on the reviews of relevant research fields,this paper argued that there was a great difference between the individual and collective perspective of creativity and morality.On one hand,individual creativity was not closely related to morality.On the other hand,group creativity had significantly positive correlation with morality.To further explain the reason of positive relation,this paper proposed model 1 and model 2 of the relationship between group creativity and morality.Model 1 believed that morality could promote interpersonal trust.The theory basis is "I am moral so I trust others" and "Others are moral so I trust them".In this way,inspired trust can play a positive role in promoting group creativity.In Model 2,trust could promote both morality and group creativity,which might lead to a positively covariant relationship between morality and group creativity.Based on this,this article first established the research ideas of examining the relationship between creativity and morality from different perspectives of individual and collective,and then put forward hypotheses and theoretical models.Finally,the possible relationship between creativity and morality was verified through a series of empirical studies.From the individual perspective,firstly,study 1 used multiple scales to test the target variables,and then calculated the correlation between the variables.The results showed that there was no significant correlation between individual creativity,including divergent thinking,remote associates test and the level of creativity behavior,and explicit and implicit moral personality.Then study 2 examined whether there was a difference in individual creativity under the condition of with and without moral judgment.The results showed that compared with non-moral judgments condition,individual had a higher level of moral self-identity after making moral judgments,while there was no difference between individual divergent thinking and remote associates test with or without moral judgments.In terms of collective perspectives,firstly,study 3 also asked different groups to do the judgment task on immoral behavior and then observed the corresponding changes in group interpersonal trust and group creativity.It found that compared with groups without moral judgment,groups that made a moral judgment had a higher level of group interpersonal trust and a higher level of group creativity novelty.Mediating variable test showed that the group interpersonal trust had a significant mediating effect between moral judgment and group creativity novelty,meanwhile,the positive influence of moral judgment on group creativity was also significant.Subsequently study 4 motivated high and low levels of interpersonal trust in groups by providing trustworthy and untrustworthy information.The results showed that compared with presenting untrustworthy information groups,the level of group moral behaviors,the novelty and fluency of group creativity of the groups presented trustworthy information were all higher.Pearson correlation results showed that the group interpersonal trust and fluency and novelty of group creativity as well as the group moral behavior presented a significantly positive correlation.Study 5 furtherly stimulated participants' trust based on moral and trust based on calculation by presenting information about the morality or ability of their group members to the test group.Based on this,possible influence of moral trust and ability trust on group creativity could be observed.The results showed that there was a more significant linear relationship between the moral trust and the novelty of group creativity,while the ability trust had an inverted U relationship with the novelty of group creativity.To furtherly clarify the plasticity of creativity in Models 1 and 2 proposed in this paper,study 6 imposed an external incentive on the group after presenting participants with low-level moral information to their group members.The results showed that for groups under the influence of low-level moral trust,there was no significant change in the levels of investment trust and group creativity before and after the emergence of external incentives.Study 7,on the other hand,imposed external incentives in low-level trust groups induced by bad first impressions.It come out that the trust level of group investment trust,the novelty and fluency of group creativity all significantly increased than those without external reward stimulation.Based on above research results,this paper drew the following conclusions.(1)There was no significantly regular association between individual creativity and morality.(2)Group creativity and morality were positively related on the whole.(3)The models 1 and 2 of the group creativity and moral relationship proposed in this paper had been verified.(4)The positive promotion of group creativity by moral trust was more stable.While the ability trust,to a certain extent,had an inhibitory effect on group creativity.(5)Model 2 was better than Model 1 in the plasticity of creativity.This article put forward hypothesis and verified the relationship between creativity and morality from the perspective of individual and collective.It not only helped to clarify the relationship between the two variables,but also inspiring the cultivation of creativity in reality.