درک احساسات، آلکسیتیمیا و پتانسیل خلاق

Theoretical proposals suggest that emotional intelligence (EI) may favor creativity. In the present paper, two studies are reported with French adults to examine the degree to which the ability to identify emotion is related to creative performance. This component of ability EI was hypothesized to be positively associated with a divergent thinking task involving emotional information. Contrary to our expectations, the first study (n = 95) indicated that ability to identify emotions in faces and images was negatively related to idea generation ability. The second study (n = 100) including a measure of alexithymia confirmed this relation. Moreover, evaluating emotional creativity, we observed a significant negative link between the ability to identify emotions and the tendency to experience emotions differently from those of others. We discuss these results suggesting an opposition between consensual/convergent thinking concerning emotions (ability EI) and divergent thinking.

The impact of emotional states on creativity has been examined in a large range of studies (Zenasni & Lubart, 2008). Results from these studies diverge. Some studies show that positive emotional state favors creativity whereas others show that it inhibits it. Moreover, studies have suggested that stable emotional characteristics modulate the impact of emotional experiences on creativity. George and Zhou (2002) found that clarity-of-feelings trait is positively associated with creative performance. This result is consistent with the idea that the ability to treat emotional information favors creativity: emotional intelligence (EI) may favor clear perception of an emotional context and thus foster creative productions. Two kinds of models of EI currently exist: trait EI and ability EI. As indicated by Petrides, Pita, and Kokkinaki (2007), “trait EI (or trait emotional self-efficacy) concerns emotion related dispositions and self-perceptions measured via self-report, whereas ability EI (or cognitive-emotional ability) concerns emotion-related cognitive abilities measured via performance-based tests” (p. 273; see also Keele & Bell, 2008). Some theories suggest that EI may significantly favor creativity. Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey (1999) suggest that EI helps individuals to have clear thoughts which favor intuition and insight processes. Ivcevic, Brackett, and Mayer (2007) added that ability EI enables a person to maintain or increase positive mood and thus may indirectly favor creative thinking. Some empirical data support the hypothesis that trait EI favors creativity. For example, Wolfradt, Felfe, and Koster (2002) examined the relationship between Petrides and Furnham’s model of trait EI evaluated by the emotional intelligence scale (EIS; Schutte et al., 1998) and creative personality using the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979). Their results indicate moderate to strong correlations (from r = .36 to r = .55, p < .001) between creative personality and four factors of trait EI (self-efficacy 1, empathy, utilization, and perceiving) evaluated by the EIS. These studies are limited because they focus on creativity as a self-reported behaviour. Few investigations have examined the impact of trait EI on creativity using performance-based measures such as the production of creative products or divergent thinking. Guastello, Guastello, and Hanson (2004) using four test from the comprehensive Ability Battery (Hakstian & Cattell, 1976) and the “What if” task (Guastello, 1994), did not observe any significant relationships (r from .00 to .12) between trait EI (evaluated by the EIS) and divergent thinking scores. In contrast, when evaluating the creative personality with the 16 PF ( Cattell, Cattell, & Cattell, 1994), they observed that the more individuals are able to treat emotions, the more they reported creative behaviours (r = .32, p < .01). Ivcevic et al. (2007) examined relationships between ability EI, emotional creativity (EC) and creativity using performance-based measures. Ability EI was evaluated using the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT, 2002). Scores of “perception of emotion”, “using emotion”, “understanding emotion”, “regulation of emotion” and a total ability EI score were calculated. Creativity was assessed using the consequences subtest of the Torrance test of creative thinking (Torrance, 1976) and the Remote Associate Test (Shames, 1994). Results showed no significant relationships between ability EI and creative performance (from r = −.13 to r = .14). Moreover, they observed weak correlations between ability EI and EC with correlations ranging from r = .03 to r = .22. Results from these studies are inconsistent. Studies involving measures of creative personality support the proposal that high ability or trait EI is associated with high creativity. However, research involving divergent thinking tasks does not support this hypothesis: correlations observed between ability EI and divergent thinking scores are weak and non-significant. Several explanations may underlie these discrepancies. First, the higher links observed between creative personality and trait EI evaluated by self-report scales may be due to shared common motivational dimensions in self-report measures. The use of cognitive creative tasks and an ability EI test allow a less biased test of the link between creativity emotional abilities. Second, variations in the emotional content of the creative tasks may contribute to observe differences; we suggest that ability EI has an impact on creative performance when the creative task includes emotional information. In the present paper, we tested the relationship between Ability EI and creative performance in tasks including emotional content. We hypothesized that emotional abilities favor creativity involving emotional content.

In an experimental room, participants completed first the divergent thinking task during 8 min. Then, in a fixed order, participants completed the advertisement task (15 min), the measures of verbal intelligence, ability EI, alexithymia, and EC.