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Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?

Previous studies have found that promoting multiple identities can improve children’s creative performance (divergent thinking). The present study employed a priming paradigm to design two experiments and investigate whether promoting a sense of multiple identities in middle school students could en...

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Autores principales: Ruan, Qian-Nan, Ye, Xin-Wu, Jia, Sui-Lin, Liang, Jing, Yan, Wen-Jing, Huang, Yao-Ju
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8566743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34744866
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704614
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author Ruan, Qian-Nan
Ye, Xin-Wu
Jia, Sui-Lin
Liang, Jing
Yan, Wen-Jing
Huang, Yao-Ju
author_facet Ruan, Qian-Nan
Ye, Xin-Wu
Jia, Sui-Lin
Liang, Jing
Yan, Wen-Jing
Huang, Yao-Ju
author_sort Ruan, Qian-Nan
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have found that promoting multiple identities can improve children’s creative performance (divergent thinking). The present study employed a priming paradigm to design two experiments and investigate whether promoting a sense of multiple identities in middle school students could enhance their divergent thinking, a key component of creativity. In Experiment 1, 77 junior high school students were divided into multiple identities and physical trait condition groups. They were instructed to think about a child with multiple identities or physical traits. The results showed that there were no differences in divergent thinking (DT) scores between the two groups. In Experiment 2, we modified the priming method by asking participants to think about and write a description of the various identities or physical traits and employed a subjective top-scoring method to make up for shortcomings in the traditional scoring method when applied to originality. The results still showed no significant difference in scores between the identity and physical trait groups. Thus, the results of this study contradict those of previous research, which found that the identity group demonstrated significantly higher scores on a creativity test than did those in the physical trait group. Several potential factors affect this outcome, but it seems that priming to enhance divergent thinking is not particularly effective. Thus, the social priming effect should be pursued with caution regarding both replicability and generalizability.
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spelling pubmed-85667432021-11-05 Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students? Ruan, Qian-Nan Ye, Xin-Wu Jia, Sui-Lin Liang, Jing Yan, Wen-Jing Huang, Yao-Ju Front Psychol Psychology Previous studies have found that promoting multiple identities can improve children’s creative performance (divergent thinking). The present study employed a priming paradigm to design two experiments and investigate whether promoting a sense of multiple identities in middle school students could enhance their divergent thinking, a key component of creativity. In Experiment 1, 77 junior high school students were divided into multiple identities and physical trait condition groups. They were instructed to think about a child with multiple identities or physical traits. The results showed that there were no differences in divergent thinking (DT) scores between the two groups. In Experiment 2, we modified the priming method by asking participants to think about and write a description of the various identities or physical traits and employed a subjective top-scoring method to make up for shortcomings in the traditional scoring method when applied to originality. The results still showed no significant difference in scores between the identity and physical trait groups. Thus, the results of this study contradict those of previous research, which found that the identity group demonstrated significantly higher scores on a creativity test than did those in the physical trait group. Several potential factors affect this outcome, but it seems that priming to enhance divergent thinking is not particularly effective. Thus, the social priming effect should be pursued with caution regarding both replicability and generalizability. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8566743/ /pubmed/34744866 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704614 Text en Copyright © 2021 Ruan, Ye, Jia, Liang, Yan and Huang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Ruan, Qian-Nan
Ye, Xin-Wu
Jia, Sui-Lin
Liang, Jing
Yan, Wen-Jing
Huang, Yao-Ju
Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title_full Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title_fullStr Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title_full_unstemmed Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title_short Can Priming Multiple Identities Enhance Divergent Thinking for Middle School Students?
title_sort can priming multiple identities enhance divergent thinking for middle school students?
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8566743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34744866
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704614
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