The Impact of Comparisons with Others on Creativity Outcomes

From scrapbooking to gift designing, from online co-creation (e.g., “My Starbucks Idea”) to customization (e.g., NikeID customization service), people often undertake the role of designer. The success of these activities requires participants to be creative. Also, these situations often entail a social environment where participants may interact with, and expect evaluation from similar others. While past research has investigated the impact of evaluation expectation from experts (people who are experienced in the domain under investigation) on creativity (for a review, see Amabile 1996), little research has examined the situation where evaluations are expected from similar others who are involved in either the same or a different creativity task. The present research attempts to fill this gap. Building upon social comparison theory (Festinger 1954), we propose that in a creativity task (e.g., making a card), in order to assess their own abilities, people are likely to compare with others when they can easily see others’ creations, especially when evaluation is expected from others. Further, we hypothesize that comparisons with others occur at different levels depending on the type of creativity task in which others are involved. First, when people are involved in the same creativity task (i.e. people making scrapbook pages in a scrapbooking class), comparisons are likely to occur based on the creativity outcomes, focusing on the dimensions under evaluation (e.g., the theme of the creation and the materials used; Wood and Taylor 1990). We refer to such comparisons as outcome-oriented comparisons. Second, when people are involved in different creativity tasks (i.e. people working under different categories of the same co-creation platform) comparisons are expected to occur based on an individual’s own ability level, focusing on dimensions related to creativity ability (e.g., one’s occupation and experiences in the creativity task). We refer to such comparisons as individual ability-oriented comparisons. We propose a focus on outcome-oriented comparisons is detrimental to creativity because it constrains choice of what and how to create, while a focus on ability-oriented comparisons could leverage creativity because it enhances competition and involvement in the creativity task. Of note, while several early studies have found that constraints enhance creativity in a variety of creativity tasks (e.g., Costello and Keane 2000; Finke, Ward, and Smith 1992; Stokes 2001; Moreau and Dahl 2005), we argue it is unlikely the case in our context since people participating in the creativity task are not explicitly required to follow the creations of others. This argument is supported by Moreau and Dahl’s (2005) finding that only when constraints are both restricted and required, constraints enhance creativity.