Mental set and creative thought in social conflict: threat rigidity versus motivated focus.
According to the traditional threat-rigidity reasoning, people in social conflict will be less flexible, less creative, more narrow-minded, and more rigid in their thinking when they adopt a conflict rather than a cooperation mental set. The authors propose and test an alternative, motivated focus account that better fits existing evidence. The authors report experimental results inconsistent with a threat-rigidity account, but supporting the idea that people focus their cognitive resources on conflict-related material more when in a conflict rather than a cooperation mental set: Disputants with a conflict (cooperation) set have broader (smaller) and more (less) inclusive cognitive categories when the domain of thought is (un)related to conflict (Experiment 1a-1b). Furthermore, they generate more, and more original competition tactics (Experiments 2-4), especially when they have low rather than high need for cognitive closure. Implications for conflict theory, for motivated information processing, and creativity research are discussed.
De Dreu
Carsten K W
CK
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. c.k.w.dedreu@uva.nl
Nijstad
Bernard A
BA
D000339:Affect; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003405:Creativity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving; D012718:Set, Psychology; D012919:Social Behavior; D013850:Thinking