Assessing Regulatory Focus Differences in Creative Ideation: An Examination of Prevention and Promotion Mindsets on Novelty and Usefulness

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to compare impact of regulatory focuses, namely preventive and promotional contexts, on creative ideation measured by novelty and usefulness. The study consisted of Singaporean students from an undergraduate university, and assessed their personality using the Big Five, Regulatory Focus, Creativity type and creativity outcomes measured with the Consensual Assessment Technique by completing a Collaborative Sketch exercise. Participants were randomly assigned to either the preventive, promotional or a baseline condition and tasked with a design problem necessitating a solution in the form of sketches. This study found the three conditions to yield significantly different novelty scores, but not usefulness scores. The most impactful condition on novelty was the baseline, indicating novice designers are capable of creating novel products and services. Those in the promotion condition created the second most novel sketches, or design solutions, followed lastly by the prevention condition. This may be so as novice designers consider larger space of solutions and may generate more ideas. This research is useful in creative pedagogy and for design professionals.

The Influence of Design Brief Information on Creative Outcomes by Novice and Advanced Students

“…Indeed, the way students approach design problems largely depends on how tasks are initially represented, what information is provided, and how design briefs are framed. However, scarce literature exists about what constitutes an efficient design brief and how its structuring could affect the creativity of the produced outcomes (Meurzec et al, 2019). To address this gap, we empirically manipulated the structure of design briefs to provide information based on abstract representations and provide instructions to frame and reframe the design task using the Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram method (Ishikawa, 1982).…”

An Experimental Comparison of Analogy Representation Effects on Creative Outcomes

“…A design brief is a written document outlining a project's requirements, expectations, and goals, providing guidance to designers during the early stages of the design process (Dorst & Dijkhuis, 1995). Although design briefs are essential for developing creative solutions, little is known about what constitutes a good brief or how to frame it (Koronis et al., 2019; Meurzec et al., 2019). To bridge this gap, the structure of the brief was empirically manipulated, providing student designers with stimuli based on visual and textual displays, and instructions to establish analogical correspondences with the problem at hand.…”