恶意创造力:概念、测量方法、影响因素以及研究展望

Malevolent Creativity: Concept, Measurement, Influence Factors and Future Research

与传统创造力研究强调创造力的积极作用不同,恶意创造力研究强调创造力背后的恶意目的和消极结果。它深入挖掘创造力的阴暗面,创立了崭新的恶意创造力概念。问题解决任务和发散思维测验是当前恶意创造力测量的主要范式,前者针对恶意创造力产品;后者侧重于对恶意创造力思维过程进行考察。情境、人格特质以及情绪是恶意创造力的主要影响因素。未来该领域应当在基本概念问题、测量方法问题以及从实证角度深化恶意创造力研究等方面进一步拓展和深入。

Positivity bias existed widely in the research of creativity in the past. People believe that creativity is a good thing, so it can produce good results, despite the fact that creativity has its dark side. In recent years, researchers started reflecting on the tendency of creativity worship. They began to focus on the negative consequences of creativity and conducted a series of studies on the dark side of creativity. This paper reviews the study of malevolent creativity, including its concept, measurement, influencing factors and outlook. Clark and James （1999） used problem-solving tasks to measure subjects＇ malevolent creativity. They asked the subjects to solve a negative problem. The pattern of problem-solving tasks was the application of the consensual assessments test in creativity measurement. It assesses the creativity products through expert evaluation. This method emphasized the measurement of malevolent creativity products. It did not aim at the thinking process of malevolent creativity. Lee and Dow （2011） used a divergent thinking test to measure malevolent creativity. For example, they asked the subjects to come up with as many uses of a brick and pencil as possible. Harris et al. improved these two methods. They used the Positivity versus Negativity Solution Evaluation Scale to evaluate the negative and original feature of the subjects＇ answers. Harris et al. took the negative and original feature into the evaluation standard to overcome the measurement issues in research by Clark ＆ James and Lee ＆ Dow. Some research results show that the activation of creativity is related to situational factors, such as social climate, cultural environment and social complexity. Clark and James discovered that individuals would produce malevolent creativity when they encountered unfair treatments in the organization. Some indicate that personality traits, especially aggressiveness, have a close relationship with malevolent creativity. Aggressiveness may fundamentally motivate malevolent creativity. Others argue that a negative correlation is found between emotional intelligence and malevolent creativity. Potential malevolent creators can be screened out by analyzing their emotional intelligence. Motivation and mood are also closely related to the generation of malevolent creativity, although this result needs to be further verified. As a new research topic in recent years, malevolent creativity has become more and more popular, although this area still has many undeveloped aspects and needs to be further improved. For example, there have been some defects in the existing definition of malevolent creativity. Malevolent creativity emphasizes ＇intentional injuries＇, while it is hard to discriminate intentional injuries and unintentional injuries objectively. Most researchers judge the purpose according to the malicious activity, which has no essential difference with negative creativity. There are also deficiencies in the measurement method. Firstly, we cannot ensure that the subject＇s malevolence is motivated, because the test can be accomplished in harmlessness state. Secondly, laboratory testing may cause subjects to be unwilling to express their true thoughts. Therefore, implicit measurement should be regarded as an important view test design in the future. Beyond that, the existing creativity study experience should be used as a reference to promote the empirical research of malevolent creativity, such as using an ERP classical paradigm in an insight problem study to investigate the neural mechanisms of maIevolent creativity.