Effects of Creative and Noncreative Problem-Solving on Anxiety

Abstract

This study has investigated whether the type of problem in creative performance increases anxiety more than the type of problem in noncreative performance. Subjects were 9 male and 48 female undergraduate students in psychology, selected from a voluntary pool and assigned (3 males, 16 females) nonsystematically to either a divergent creative problem-solving condition, a convergent noncreative problem-solving condition, or a control condition involving a neutral problem-solving condition. The Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered to each group before and after the experimental conditions. It was hypothesized: (a) that divergent creative problem-solving would increase state anxiety significantly more than both the convergent noncreative problem-solving task and the neutral problem-solving task and (b) that trait anxiety would not be significantly affected by any of the conditions. Only the latter hypothesis was confirmed. Divergent creative problem-solving did not significantly increase state anxiety, perhaps because the employed subjects were students and may have felt more comfortable with divergent problems than the average population.