PROBLEM 4. CREATIVITY 1
Specific Mindfulness Skills Differentially Predict Creative
Performance
Matthijs Baas, Barbara Nevicka, and Femke S. Ten Velden
Hypotheses
a. Uniform and positive relationship between mindfulness and
creativity
b. Differential relationship between mindfulness and creativity
based on the components of mindfulness
Mindfulness
Definition: non-judgmental, sustained and alert awareness of
experiences in the present moment including physical sensations,
affective states and thoughts
Attention to mental content without observing the passing
thoughts, feelings and sensations
Different than mind states (preoccupation, distractions)
Styles of mindfulness
Focused attention mediation: voluntary focus of attention on a
chosen object in sustained fashion
Closely monitoring of thoughts, feelings and sensations target
distractions and disengage from them and shift attention back to
selected object
Open-monitoring mediation: non-judgmental monitoring of
experiences in the present moment
No explicit focus on object, monitoring of sensations, affective
states and thoughts in non-evaluative way and non-reactively
become aware of automatic cognitive and emotional
interpretations
Typical exercises: combination of the styles (attention to object &
observation)
Skills
1. Observation: carefully observe, notice or attend internal and
external phenomena
Open-monitoring mediation
2. Act with awareness: fully engage in current activities with
undivided attention, or focus on one thing at a time with full
awareness
Focused attention mediation
3. Description: verbally describing observed phenomena in a non-
evaluative way and without conceptual analysis
, PROBLEM 4. CREATIVITY 2
4. Accept without judgement: accept and be non-evaluative
about present activities
Mindfulness scales
Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS)
Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills Scale (KIMS)
Mindfulness, Meditation, and Creativity
Creativity: production of outcomes (e.g., ideas, drawings, and
musical improvisations) that are both novel and appropriate
o Ideation tasks: open-ended assessments of the ability to
generate numerous solutions e.g. generate ideas that are
rated by independent coders
o Self-report inventories: assessing creative behaviors,
personality and activities
→ Correlate substantially with other ratings of creativity/creative
performance like expert ratings
Evidence for uniform and positive correlation of mindfulness
mediation and self-reported mindfulness with creativity
Non-uniform relation: Observation is more related to
creativity compared to AWA
o Observation: unrestricted awareness of feelings, thoughts and
sensations cognitive flexibility, alternatives to complex
problems and inhibition of automatic responding
High on Observation switch from one thought to other and
control of dominant responses
o AWA: entails engagement of attentional processes to focus and
sustain attention on intended thought, sensation or object and
to monitor and shield distractions (top-down attentional control)
o Observation and AWA both have been related to factors of
creativity like positive affect and enhanced WM
Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 4
Aim/ AWA and All components of Causality of Manipulation of
hypoth creativity mindfulness and mindfulness- AWA or
esis (Tested for Big 5 creativity creativity (giving 8- Observation and
and GI too) week training) assessment of
Uniform: Uniform and creativity (mood,
positive Differential: positive motivation
Differential: no effect mediators)
or negative
Method AWA (MAAS), GI KIMS, GI (RAMP), Before & last training KIMS, Ideation
(RAPM), Big 5 Cognitive week task,
and ideation flexibility, KIMS, Creativity (8- Manipulation
task Creative items) and training check, Moods and
achievements, experience motivation
