The Light Side of Creativity: An Honesty Mindset Can Boost Creativity

Considerable consumer research has established that a critical area of study is the investigation of contextual factors that enable consumers to be creative (e.g., Moreau and Dahl 2005). Alarmingly, recent research documented that creativity can negatively affect ethical behavior (e.g., Gino and Ariely, 2012). The present research flips this perspective to show that creators with an ethical mindset can enjoy greater creativity (study 1). We further show that a moral mindset can similarly serve as a creative boost (study 2). In sum, the activation of “good” can increase creativity. What is a mindset? Engaging in certain tasks is known to activate a set of cognitive operations, which remain activated beyond the initial task, thereby influencing subsequent and unrelated tasks – the term “mindset” is used to refer to this global readiness (e.g., Gollwitzer, 1990). Following this research, we define an ethical mindset as a global readiness to have appropriate feelings in distinguishing between what is morally acceptable versus not (Crisp 2000). As such, an ethical mindset involves one’s justification of one’s actions as being appropriate (Gino & Ariely, 2012); it implies moral flexibility. A moral mindset is different in that it represents a global readiness to abide by an absolute set of rules allowing no internal justification – whether actions are appropriate is externally dictated.