The relationship between self-construal and creativity — Regulatory focus as moderator

Abstract This study attempted to examine the influence of self-construal and regulatory focus on individuals' creativity (Experiment 1 focused on chronic regulatory focus, while Experiment 2 focused on situational regulatory focus). In Experiment 1, participants completed a Self-Construal Scale (SCS), a Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ) and a Williams Creativity Assessment Packet (WCAP). In Experiment 2, participants initially completed the SCS and then were placed in a promotion or prevention focus group through the use of a paper-and-pen maze task, and they finally completed a task from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Both experiments suggested the following: 1) independent self-construal is more beneficial to creativity than is interdependent self-construal; 2) promotion focus is more beneficial to creativity than is prevention focus; and 3) regulatory focus has a moderator effect between self-construal and creativity. Most notably, creativity may be enhanced by a match between self-construal and regulatory focus (i.e., interdependent self-construal matches with prevention focus, and independent self-construal matches with promotion focus) and may be decreased by a mismatch between self-construal and regulatory focus.