The literature already indicates that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) predict important cognitive abilities and outcomes, such as reasoning (e.g., Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005 Oberauer, Wilhelm, & Süß, 2005), language comprehension (e.g., Daneman & Merikle, 1996 Just & Carpenter, 1992), multitasking (Hambrick, Oswald, Darowski, Rench, & Brou, 2010 König, Bühner, & Mürling, 2005), learning (e.g. Specifically, in three studies we examine the extent to which two indices of executive control - working memory capacity and propensity for mind wandering - predict normal variation in divergent thinking. What’s the best way to creatively generate a new idea? Should we cognitively buckle down, as when wrestling with a complex syllogism in logic class, and attempt to screen distractions from external stimuli and task-irrelevant thoughts? Or, might we be better off loosening up, allowing the mind to roam freely to sights, sounds, and ideas that seem only remotely connected to the task at hand? To determine whether creativity comes to those who work or to those who wander, we heeded Underwood’s (1975) advice that individual differences provide a critical test-bed for theorizing. ![]() On balance, our data provide no support for either benefits or costs of executive control for at least one component of creativity. Moreover, the fact that WMC tends to strongly predict analytical problem solving and reasoning, but may not correlate with divergent thinking, provides a useful boundary condition for defining WMC’s nomological net. WMC did not correlate with creativity in divergent thinking, whereas only the questionnaire measure of daydreaming, but not probed thought reports, weakly predicted creativity the fact that in-the-moment TUTs did not correlate divergent creativity is especially problematic for claims that mind-wandering processes contribute to creative cognition. Retrospective self-reports of Openness (Experiment 2) and mind-wandering and daydreaming propensity (Experiment 3) complemented our thought-probe assessments of TUT. Three individual-differences studies inserted incubation periods into one or two divergent thinking tasks and tested whether WMC (assessed by complex span tasks) and incubation-period mind wandering (assessed as probed reports of task-unrelated thought ) predicted post-incubation performance. However, unfocused attention and daydreaming should allow mental access to more loosely relevant concepts, remotely linked to commonplace solutions. ![]() Should executive control, as indicated by working memory capacity (WMC) and mind-wandering propensity, help or hinder creativity? Sustained and focused attention should help guide a selective search of solution-relevant information in memory and help inhibit uncreative, yet accessible, ideas.
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