Moderating Role of Creative Mindset in the Effect of Metacognitive Experience on Insight Problem Solving

Metacognitive experience, measured by processing fluency, contributes to divergent thinking performance; however, whether it exhibits varying effects on insight problem-solving remains unknown. Additionally, as individuals’ interpretation of metacognitive experience is influenced by their creative mindset, whether creative mindset plays a role in the relationship between metacognitive experience and insight problem-solving is another issue. In Experiment 1, a Chinese logogriph task was used to investigate insight problem-solving performance. The font style of logogriphs (easy versus difficult) was used to alter the ease of processing. The results showed that individuals had lower performance accuracy for logogriphs presented in difficult font styles, suggesting the negative effect of metacognitive disfluency experience on logogriph solving. In Experiment 2, different creative mindsets (entity versus incremental) were activated in individuals via prime manipulation. Individuals with an incremental creative mindset had a significantly higher performance accuracy and longer reaction time for logogriphs presented in difficult font styles than individuals with an entity creative mindset, suggesting that an incremental creative mindset might counteract the negative effect of metacognitive disfluency experience on logogriphs solving. These findings suggest that metacognitive disfluency experience has a negative effect on insight problem-solving and that a creative mindset moderated this effect.