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A new study authored by Yadan Li, Lingling Zhang, Yilong Yang, Shuoqi Xiang, and Weiping Hu sheds light on the complex relationship between addiction-prone personalities and creative thinking. The research found that individuals with a tendency toward addictive behaviors are more likely to generate a large number of ideas but struggle when it comes to selecting the best ones. The study also discovered that novelty seeking plays a key role in mediating this relationship, and that depressive tendencies can further influence how addiction-prone individuals approach creativity.
An addiction-prone personality is typically associated with traits such as impulsiveness and a propensity for risk-taking, characteristics that are also sometimes linked to creativity. Yet the exact mechanism by which these traits influence creativity, particularly in terms of generating and selecting ideas, remains unclear.
Additionally, the researchers wanted to explore the role of novelty seeking – a desire for new experiences – and how depressive tendencies might modify these relationships. Since college students are at a critical age for both creativity and vulnerability to addiction, they were chosen as the focus group for this study.
To conduct the study, the researchers recruited 576 university students from China, aged between 17 and 22. These students completed several self-report questionnaires designed to measure their addiction-prone personality traits, novelty seeking tendencies, creative cognitive styles (idea generation and idea selection), and depressive symptoms.
The researchers found that addiction-prone personality traits were associated with a higher capacity for idea generation but a lower ability to select the most appropriate or useful ideas. In other words, individuals with addiction-prone traits excelled in coming up with many creative ideas but struggled to filter through them effectively.
Novelty seeking partially explained this relationship. Addiction-prone individuals were more likely to seek out new experiences, which helped them generate more ideas. Finally, the study found that depressive tendencies moderated these relationships. Individuals with higher levels of depression were less likely to engage in novelty seeking, which in turn reduced their ability to generate creative ideas.
Source: Psychological Reports
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