Given that creative ideation has been widely characterized as involving disinhibition, we tested whether a brief creative ideation effort increased subsequent indulgence through the choice of real or imagined rewards. Across 10 experiments (and an additional four in the Supplemental Material) and 3,412 participants (including the ones in the Supplemental Material), we show that a short creative ideation (vs. control) task led to more indulgent eating, drinking, and exercise choices and behaviors. Participants who generated creative ideas subsequently assembled burgers with higher calorie content (Studies 1a, 3a, 3b, 4), proposed cocktails with higher alcohol content (Study 1b), planned workouts that burned fewer calories (Study 1c), chose candy more often (Study 1d), and ate more candy (Study 2) than participants who engaged in control tasks. In line with the perspective that creativity involves disinhibition, these effects were mediated by the behavioral activation system, which is thought to underlie the uninhibited pursuit of desires and rewards (Studies 2, 3a, 4). Furthermore, an experiment in which we manipulated the behavioral activation system showed a causal effect on indulgent eating choices (Study 5). We discuss the implications for future research on the consequences of creativity as well as the possibility that creative work might lead to indulgent, potentially unhealthy choices and behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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创造性的构思激活了无拘无束的追求奖励和放纵的选择。


鉴于创造性构思被广泛描述为涉及去抑制，我们测试了短暂的创造性构思努力是否通过选择真实或想象的奖励来增加随后的放纵。在 10 个实验（以及补充材料中的另外 4 个）和 3,412 名参与者（包括补充材料中的参与者）中，我们表明，一个简短的创造性构思（与对照相比）任务会导致更放纵的饮食、饮水和锻炼选择和行为。产生创意的参与者随后组装了卡路里含量更高的汉堡（研究 1a、3a、3b、4），提议了酒精含量更高的鸡尾酒（研究 1b），计划燃烧更少卡路里的锻炼（研究 1c），更频繁地选择糖果（研究 1d），吃更多的糖果（研究 2）比从事控制任务的参与者。与创造力涉及去抑制的观点一致，这些影响是由行为激活系统介导的，这被认为是无拘无束地追求欲望和奖励的基础（研究 2、3a、4）。此外，我们操纵行为激活系统的一项实验表明，对放纵的饮食选择有因果效应（研究 5）。我们讨论了对未来研究对创造力后果的影响，以及创造性工作可能导致放纵、可能不健康的选择和行为的可能性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。