The liberating consequences of creative work: How a creative outlet lifts the physical burden of secrecy

Abstract

A newly emerging stream of research suggests creativity can be fruitfully explored, not as an outcome variable, but as a contributor to the general cognitive and behavioral responding of the individual. In this paper, we extend this nascent area of research on the consequences of creativity by showing that working on a creative task can contribute to feelings of liberation-feelings that can help people to overcome psychological burdens. We illustrate the liberating effects of creativity by integrating the embodied cognition literature with recent research showing that keeping a secret is experienced as a psychological and physical burden. While secrecy is metaphorically related to physical burden, creativity is metaphorically associated with freedom to "think outside the box" and explore beyond normal constraints. Thus, we predict permission to be creative may actually feel liberating and feelings of liberation may, in turn, lift the physical burden of keeping a big secret. The results of three studies supported our prediction and suggest that the opportunity to be creative may be a way for people to unburden without directly revealing secrets that could cause shame and embarrassment. We discuss the implications of our results for future research on the psychological consequences of performing creative work.

Creativity as a Stepping Stone toward a Brighter Future

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Maybe I Just Got (Un)lucky: One-on-One Conversations and the Malleability of Post-Consumption Product and Service Evaluations

“…We tested moderated mediation using PROCESS model 59 of the bootstrapping process described by Hayes (2013) on the t 2 -t 1 evaluation index difference scores. This model has been used in other studies to allow the moderator (valence of own experience) to interact with both the independent variable (partner's experience) and the mediator (dismissal) (Birnbaum et al 2014;Clark et al 2017;Goncalo, Vincent, and Krause 2015). This is the most robust model to analyze our effect, given that the valence of the consumer's own experience also affects the direction of evaluation change following dismissal (see web appendix C for a full explanation of the model, its graphical depiction, and detailed analysis).…”

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“…Outside of the context of schooling, evidence on the impact of more generalized stress or anxiety on children's creativity is sparse (Wu and Chiou, 2008 ). However, there is some evidence that creativity can increase resiliency (Metzl, 2009 ), relieve burdens (Goncalo et al, 2015 ), reduce personal stress (Byron et al, 2010 ), and generally enhance meaning and positive mental health outcomes (Kaufman, 2018 ), even at a tumultuous time such as this (Fegert et al, 2020 ). There is increasing evidence of a strong link between creativity and self-efficacy, from Bandura's ( 1982 ) assertion that self-efficacy is an important cognitive mediator of action, followed by Bandura ( 1997 ), evolving their thinking and suggesting a causal link to creative performance.…”