Lynne C. Vincent

Stretching the Moral Gray Zone Positive Affect, Moral Disengagement, and Dishonesty

We propose that positive affect promotes dishonest behavior by providing the cognitive flexibility necessary to reframe and to rationalize dishonest acts. This hypothesis was tested in two studies. The results of Study 1 showed that individuals experiencing positive affect morally disengage to a greater extent than do individuals experiencing neutral affect. Study 2 built on this finding by demonstrating that the ability to morally disengage can lead individuals who experience positive affect to behave dishonestly. Specifically, the results of Study 2 showed that people experiencing positive affect are more likely to steal than individuals experiencing neutral affect, particularly when self-awareness is low. Furthermore, moral disengagement fully mediated this effect. Taken together, the results suggest that positive affect paves the way for the commission of dishonest acts by altering how individuals evaluate the moral implications of their own behavior.

Outside Advantage: Can Social Rejection Fuel Creative Thought?

Eminently creative people working in fields as disparate as physics and literature refer to the experience of social rejection as fuel for creativity. Yet, the evidence of this relationship is anecdotal, and the psychological process that might explain it is as yet unknown. We theorize that the experience of social rejection may indeed stimulate creativity but only for individuals with an independent self-concept. In 3 studies, we show that individuals who hold an independent self-concept performed more creatively after social rejection relative to inclusion. We also show that this boost in creativity is mediated by a differentiation mind-set, or salient feelings of being different from others. Future research might investigate how the self-concept--for example, various cultural orientations-may shape responses to social rejection by mitigating some of the negative consequences of exclusion and potentially even motivating creative exploration.

Early creativity as a constraint on future achievement

Most organizations, particularly those in volatile environments, recognize the need to stimulate creativity in their workforce because new and useful ideas can be highly profitable (Shalley & Perry-Smith, 2001). It is not surprising, then, that employees or teams that manage to develop a highly creative idea are rewarded with greater pay, recognition, and status (Merton, 1968). However, a highly successful creative idea also may lead to frustration, unmet expectations, and failed attempts to replicate success by producing poor imitations of one’s early work. In other words, early creativity may constrain future achievement as people buckle under the weight of their past success. There is abundant evidence that success can stifle creativity from biographies of eminent novelists. For instance, Ralph Ellison never produced another novel after the Invisible Man despite years of broken promises (and book contracts) that never materialized. It would appear that Harper Lee did not even make such an attempt; she retired shortly after writing her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. This decision may have been a rational one on her part because even prolific writers seem to have trouble replicating early career success. For example, there was a 32-year gap between Norman Mailer’s iconic first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948), and his next critical and commercial hit, The Executioner’s Song (1980). Furthermore, the constraining effects of creativity are not restricted to writers but may be a consequence of success in many fields. For instance, Art Fry, the scientist who invented the Post-It Note, also has been constrained by early success because all his subsequent inventions, such as the Post-It Flag, are incrementally related to the original Post-It idea. Almost from the inception of research on creativity, there has been a focus on the highly creative individual and an attempt to identify the traits (Helson, 1996) and social contexts (Amabile, 1983a, 1996) that give

License to Steal: How the Creative Identity Entitles Dishonesty

Organizations operate in an increasingly uncertain and changing world. Competition on the domestic and international fronts is intense, and organizations must create new products, strategies, services, and methods for maneuvering in the changing environment. As a result, organizations are recognizing the value of employees’ creativity as a way to innovate and maintain a competitive advantage (Thompson, 2003). Researchers and organizations are now beginning to explore how having a creative identity can increase creativity (Farmer, Tierney, & Kung-Mclntyre, 2003; Jaussi, Randel, & Dionne, 2007). Given the power of identities for shaping performance outcomes (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Beyer & Hannah, 2002; Wrzesniewski, Dutton, & Debebe, 2003), it is not surprising that recent research has begun to explore how the creative identity can also motivate creative behavior.

Outside advantage: Social rejection can fuel creative cognition

Eminently creative people working in fields as disparate as Physics and Literature refer to the experience of social rejection as fuel for creative thought. Yet, the evidence of this relationship is anecdotal, and the psychological process that might explain it is as yet unknown. We theorize that the experience of social rejection may indeed stimulate creativity but only for individuals with an independent sense of self. In Study 1, the trait “Need for Uniqueness” was positively correlated with creative performance for individuals who experienced social rejection but not for those who experienced inclusion. In Study 2, participants primed with an independent self-construal performed significantly better on a creative task following social rejection than did participants with an interdependent self-construal. Our findings suggest that people with a more independent sense of self may be able to better manage the negative consequences of rejection and use it to stimulate creative problem solving.