Do threatening situations evoke creativity?

Riley, Sean N.; Gabora, Liane

doi:10.1037/e713702011-001

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…There is increasing evidence in support of a non-Darwinian evolutionary theory of creativity, honing theory, according to which creative ideas evolve not by selecting amongst multiple blindly generated variants, as postulated by BVSR, but by actualizing the potential of an ill-defined idea, by observing how it changes state through interaction with sequentially considered contexts or perspectives [35,49,51,103]. The ill-defined idea can be said to be in a 'state of potentiality' because it could actualize different days depending on the different perspectives or contextual cues taken into account as it takes shape.…”

Section: An Evolutionary Framework For Creativity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange

Gabora

2013

Physics of Life Reviews

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Dawkins' replicator-based conception of evolution has led to widespread misapplication of selectionism across the social sciences because it does not address the paradox that inspired the theory of natural selection in the first place: how do organisms accumulate change when traits acquired over their lifetime are obliterated? This is addressed by von Neumann's concept of a self-replicating automaton (SRA). A SRA consists of a self-assembly code that is used in two distinct ways: (1) actively deciphered during development to construct a self-similar replicant, and (2) passively copied to the replicant to ensure that it can reproduce. Information that is acquired over a lifetime is not transmitted to offspring, whereas information that is inherited during copying is transmitted. In cultural evolution there is no mechanism for discarding acquired change. Acquired change can accumulate orders of magnitude faster than, and quickly overwhelm, inherited change due to differential replication of variants in response to selection. This prohibits a selectionist but not an evolutionary framework for culture and the creative processes that fuel it. The importance non-Darwinian processes in biological evolution is increasingly recognized. Recent work on the origin of life suggests that early life evolved through a non-Darwinian process referred to as communal exchange that does not involve a self-assembly code, and that natural selection emerged from this more haphazard, ancestral evolutionary process. It is proposed that communal exchange provides an evolutionary framework for culture that enables specification of cognitive features necessary for a (real or artificial) society to evolve culture. This is supported by a computational model of cultural evolution and a conceptual network based program for documenting material cultural history, and it is consistent with high levels of human cooperation. Evolutionary Framework Culture 3Keywords: creativity, cultural evolution, meme, natural selection, replicator, selfreplicating automaton Evolutionary Framework Culture 4 IntroductionLike organisms, elements of culture exhibit descent with modification; new ideas and artifacts build adaptively on previous ones. If it were possible to root the social and behavioral sciences in an evolutionary framework, they might achieve a unification comparable with Darwin's unification of the life sciences. Thus it is unsurprising that, dating back to Herbert Spencer's introduction of the notion of social Darwinism a few years after Darwin's Origin of Species, Darwinian thinking has been applied to a range of phenomena outside of biology, including creativity [14,111], neural copying and pruning [11,12,13,23,26], law [55], cosmology [118], computer-mediated communication [74], and perhaps most extensively, cultural and economic change [7,8,15,71,86,87,107,108]. Elements of culture build on one another cumulatively, as demonstrated even in laboratory settings [10]. Not only does culture accumulate over time, but it adapts, diversifies,...

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Section: An Evolutionary Framework For Creativity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange

Gabora

2013

Physics of Life Reviews

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“…Interestingly, threatening situations have also been found to evoke more imaginative and creative responses, suggesting imagination may serve a survival purpose (Riley & Gabora, 2013).…”

Section: Imagination Anxiety and Loneliness During The Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagination, anxiety, and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zabelina¹,

Clay²,

Upshaw³

2021

Preprint

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Imagination is relevant in many aspects of our lives, and has been associated with creativity and overall cognitive development, yet imagination may also have a dark side. In two studies we examined the link between imagination, anxiety, and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. US college students (N = 101, Study 1) and participants from an international community sample (N = 61, Study 2) were tested around the time that rates of COVID-19 cases were escalating. Across both samples, we found that spending more time in one’s imagination was associated with elevated levels of anxiety. Furthermore, frequency of imagination interacted with loneliness in predicting changes in anxiety during, compared to before the pandemic. Specifically, lonely people who spent more time imagining experienced the largest increases in anxiety during, compared to before the pandemic. In Study 1 valence of imagination and changes in anxiety were also moderated by feelings of loneliness, although this effect was not replicated in Study 2. Results indicate that at least some features of imagination, particularly how much time people spend in imaginative states, may be associated with negative mood states, such as feelings of anxiety. Implications and future directions are discussed.

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“…Additionally, frequent engagement in imagination during childhood is related to a higher social understanding (Taylor, Carlson, Maring, Gerow, & Charley, 2004). Interestingly, threatening situations have also been found to evoke more imaginative and creative responses, suggesting imagination may serve a survival purpose (Riley & Gabora, 2013).…”

Section: Imagination Anxiety and Loneliness During The Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Association between Imagination and Anxiety in the Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Zabelina

Clay

Upshaw

2021

Creativity Research Journal

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Imagination is relevant in many aspects of our lives and has been associated with creativity and overall cognitive development, yet imagination may also have a dark side. In two studies we examined the link between imagination, anxiety, and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. US college students (N = 101, Study 1) and participants from an international community sample (N = 61, Study 2) were tested when that rates of COVID-19 cases were escalating. Across both samples, we found that spending more time in one's imagination was associated with elevated levels of anxiety. Furthermore, frequency of imagination interacted with loneliness in predicting changes in anxiety during, compared to before the pandemic. Specifically, lonely people who spent more time imagining experienced the largest increases in anxiety during, compared to before the pandemic. In Study 1 valence of imagination and changes in anxiety were also moderated by feelings of loneliness, although this effect was not replicated in Study 2. Results indicate that at least some features of imagination, particularly how much time people spend in imaginative states, may be associated with negative mood states, such as feelings of anxiety. Implications and future directions are discussed.

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Do threatening situations evoke creativity?

Cited by 18 publications

References 19 publications

An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange

An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange

Imagination, anxiety, and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Association between Imagination and Anxiety in the Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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