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The inspirational power of arts on creativity

Article  in  Journal of Business Research · November 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.025

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres

The inspirational power of arts on creativity 7

a b,⁎
Donghwy An , Nara Youn
a
Department of Culture and Art Management, Hongik University, 94 Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, 121-791, Seoul 04066, South Korea
b
Marketing Department, Hongik University, 94 Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, 121-791, Seoul 04066, South Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: We propose that openness to aesthetics and the experience of art enhances individuals' creativity by imbuing
Arts them with a sense of inspiration. Although previous literature has claimed that aesthetic experiences increase
Creativity creativity, there is a shortage of empirical evidence documenting the psychological process that underlies this
Inspiration effect or testing whether it can transfer to domains outside of the arts. To shed light on the process mechanism
Aesthetic experience
and test the domain-generality of the effect, we investigated the relationships among appreciation of art, in-
spiration, and creativity in four studies. Participants with open attitudes toward aesthetic experiences were more
likely to be inspired and therefore better able to generate creative solutions (Study 1). Appreciating works of art
brought about inspiration, which in turn enhanced creativity (Study 2). Finally, the power of art appreciation
extended to a business environment, where it enhanced performance in product design, brand-naming, and
problem solution generation (Studies 3a and 3b).

1. Introduction innovative alternative uses of products. Companies such as Dell, Elec-

trolux, Threadless, LEGO, General Mills, BMW, and Starbucks, just to
In recent years, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to name a few, have developed open innovation platforms that allow
the ways in which art might benefit business organization, marketing, consumers to post ideas to the company online and through social
and strategy, and research has revealed several beneficial effects of art media. Creativity among employees who think outside the box can also
interventions for companies. For instance, exposure to art positively be strategically exploited by companies to generate innovative new
influences profitability and marketing persuasiveness, external and in- product ideas (Bare & Oldham, 2006; Burroughs, Dahl, Moreau,
ternal company relationships, the development of leadership and or- Chattopadhyay, & Gorn, 2011; George & Zhou, 2001; James,
ganizational culture, self-discovery and personal growth, collaboration, Brodersen, & Jacob, 2004). To this end, a substantial number of com-
activation of emotions and energy, and creativity through openness to panies have implemented creativity training programs for employees
new experiences and widened perspectives (Artlab, 2009; Berthoin working in areas such as new product design (Burroughs et al., 2011).
Antal & Strauß, 2013; Eriksson, 2009; Katz-Buonincontro, 2008; van As companies' recognition of the benefits of creativity has increased,
den Broeck, Cools, & Maenhout, 2008). Among these effects, the last has many art programs have been employed in workplaces as a fresh ap-
generated some of the most interest, as creativity is essential for gen- proach to bring about innovation (Berthoin Antal & Strauß, 2013). The
erating unusual and novel ideas, which can drive organizational suc- literature on such approaches, however, is nascent and almost entirely
cess—especially in a rapidly changing and competitive economic cli- anecdotal, and only a few studies have tried to theoretically investigate
mate. the effects of art appreciation on creativity and unveil the underlying
Creativity is the generation of ideas or problem solutions that are psychological processes. The key objective of our research was there-
both novel and appropriate (Amabile, 1983; Guilford, 1967). Consumer fore to empirically document that experiencing art leads to greater
creativity is a similar problem-solving capability specifically applied to creativity because art inspires people.
consumption-related problems (Hirschman, 1980). Firms including We took an experimental approach to theoretically test the effects of
Home Depot, Ikea, and Michaels rely heavily on consumer creativity, art and, further, to test whether inspiration and creativity induced
using consumers as a source of creative new product ideas and even as through the experience of art can transfer to business-related contexts.
co-producers of products. In this role as “prosumers,” consumers ac- Although it is generally accepted that involvement in artistic activities
tively engage in new product development, offering fresh and creative fosters creativity in the field of art education (Dewey, 1989; Guetzkow,
ideas to companies through contests or crowdsourcing platforms and 2002), there remains skepticism about the notion that psychological

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Youn).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.025

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aspects underlying successful creative performance can transfer from creativity for any field that requires creative insight (Miller & C'Debaca,
domain to domain (Baer, 1998). 1994; Thrash & Elliot, 2004). Empirical psychologists have recently
In the next section, we review literature establishing the relation- turned their attention to inspiration and examined whether muses can
ship between art and creativity. Next, we introduce the concept of in- be elevated from their mythical origins to a scientific level
spiration as a psychological construct to explain how art stimulates (Milyavskaya, Ianakieva, Foxen-Craft, Colantuoni, & Koestner, 2012).
creativity. Last, we present the results of four studies in support of our The Oxford Dictionary of English defines “inspiration” as “the process
hypotheses. of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do
something creative.” Thrash and colleagues conceptualized inspiration
2. Creativity and art as comprising three components: evocation, transcendence, and moti-
vation (Thrash & Elliot, 2003). Inspiration is, first, unintentionally
Previous research empirically investigating the effects of the arts in evoked by external or internal stimuli. Afterward, a sense of transcen-
business settings has shown that art interventions elicit positive reac- dence occurs, making the individual aware of more than his or her
tions from those involved, including both managers and employees usual concerns. Finally, this awareness encourages the individual to
(Berthoin Antal & Strauß, 2013). For example, Eriksson (2009) in- actualize the evoked idea, transforming into motivation. Based on this
vestigated Arts in Residence in Science (AIRIS) projects and reported tripartite conceptualization, Thrash and Elliot (2003) constructed the
that through these projects, employees increased their creativity by Inspiration Scale as a measure of inspiration and showed that it pre-
“getting a new outlook on [work] and breaking conventional patterns” dicted “creative self-conception” in subjects.
(p. 2), which increased their innovation and competitiveness and, in In a departure from this conceptualization, Oleynick, Thrash,
consequence, that of their whole organizations (Eriksson, 2009; LeFew, Moldovan, and Kieffaber (2014) emphasized that inspiration
Styhre & Eriksson, 2008). These findings thus support the argument that explains “the motivational transmission” to creative ideas rather than a
art can serve as a tool for generating creativity and innovation within source of creativity. Unlike previous theories on the relationship be-
firms (Berthoin Antal & Strauß, 2013; Eriksson, 2009; tween inspiration and creativity, Oleynick et al.'s conception hinges on
Styhre & Eriksson, 2008). the idea that inspiration may mediate the generation of creative ideas.
Research in art education has also demonstrated art's potential for Taking this point of view, it can reasonably be suggested that appre-
enhancing creativity. Burton, Horowitz, and Abeles (1999) studied ciating works of art can enhance creativity because such appreciation
students with high exposure to drama, dance, music, and art and found triggers inspiration. Indeed, composers of poetry, science writing, and
that they outperformed those with less exposure to arts-related activ- fiction who felt inspired while writing were more motivated and ac-
ities on creativity tasks (TTCT: the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, tualized more creative ideas than those who did not (Thrash, Maruskin,
which measure fluency, originality, elaboration, and resistance to clo- Cassidy, Fryer, & Ryan, 2010).
sure) and the Teacher Perception Scale, which measures idea expres- Our review of the literature suggests that individuals with more
sion, risk-taking, and imagination. Arts-based improvisational activities open attitudes toward artistic activities tend to engage in more di-
such as dancing and acting also increased divergent thinking among vergent thinking (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2009; Feist & Brady, 2004;
elementary students: Sowden, Clements, Redlich, and Lewis (2015) Furnham & Avison, 1997; McCrae, 1987; McCrae & Costa, 1997;
showed that students who participated in an improvisational dance Rawlings et al., 2000), to display more creative behaviors and interests
class outperformed those who participated in a non-improvised dance (Griffin & McDermott, 1998), and to experience more inspiration
class in a subsequent toy-design task. (Thrash & Elliot, 2003). We therefore expected aesthetic experiences,
Research has examined the creativity-enhancing potential of not inspiration, and creativity to positively correlate, predicting the fol-
only engagement with art but aesthetic experiences as they relate to lowing:
individual dispositions such as openness to aesthetics. Costa and
H1. Individuals with more openness toward aesthetic experience should be
McCrae (1992) defined openness to aesthetics as “a deep appreciation
inspired more often and more deeply in their daily lives and show greater
for art and beauty” and included it as a facet of openness to experience,
creativity than those with less open attitudes toward aesthetics.
one of the Big Five traits of personality differences (McCrae & Costa,
1997). Individuals with high openness to experience actively seek and Building on this idea, we also predicted that when participants re-
appreciate experiences for their own sake, are imaginative and sensitive called a time they had experienced works of art—an induction of aes-
to art and beauty, and have rich and complex emotional lives thetic experience—their state inspiration (measured using items asso-
(Costa & McCrae, 1992). Many studies have found that the more open ciated with evocation, transcendence, and motivation; Thrash et al.,
an individual is to new experiences, the more he or she will engage in 2010) would be increased and would in turn enhance their creative
artistic activities, and more open individuals show a greater capacity performance. Thus, we proposed the following:
for imaginative and divergent thinking, which is a more flexible and
H2. Individuals who recall experiencing works of art should show greater
fluent processing style facilitating idea generation (Chamorro-Premuzic
inspiration and, thus, more creativity than those who recall aspects of their
et al., 2009; Feist & Brady, 2004; Furnham & Avison, 1997; McCrae,
typical daily lives.
1987; McCrae & Costa, 1997; Rawlings, Barrantes, Vidal, & Furnham,
2000). Greater openness to aesthetics has been shown to be highly Next, we extended the effect of art appreciation on creative per-
predictive of self-reported creative pursuits and interests formance to the business domain (Table 1). More specifically, we ex-
(Griffin & McDermott, 1998). These findings provide theoretical sup- amined participants' problem-solving capability in a business-relevant
port for the main hypothesis that we empirically tested in the studies context. Previous research on creativity has provided mixed suggestions
reported here—that there is a positive relationship between experien- about whether creativity transfers from domain to domain (Baer, 2010).
cing works of art and being creative. Some researchers have argued that creativity derives from a general set
of psychological descriptors—skills, aptitudes, traits, propensities, mo-
3. Inspiration and creativity tivations, and behaviors—that can be productively deployed in any
domain (Plucker, 1998). Others have claimed that the psychological
The view that inspiration is closely linked to the development of descriptors underlying creative performance vary across domains (Baer,
creative ideas has existed since ancient times. In Greek mythology, 1998). For instance, art appreciation might lead to higher creativity in
Muses were the goddesses of inspiration, who whispered ideas of bril- the arts but not transfer to the realm of business.
liance to creators and guided their creative processes in literature, Thus, we investigated whether people exposed to painting or poetry
science, and the arts. Now, the term “muse” is used to depict a source of would design a computer keyboard, name a brand, and provide


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

recycling solutions in more creative ways, compared with those who

Participant observation
Research methodology were not exposed to art, and whether any observed creativity effects
would be mediated by inspiration. We therefore predicted that the
creativity-enhancing effects of art appreciation would extend to busi-

Experiments

Experiments

Experiments

Experiments
Interview

Interview

Interview

Interview

Interview
ness-relevant tasks. Formally:
Survey

Survey

Survey
H3. Exposure to works of art should enhance business-related creativity in
the form of product design, brand-naming, and problem solution generation.

Enhanced creative attitudes (curiosity, adventurousness, goal orientation, independence,

Development of possibility thinking (the ability to make connections, think differently,

Creativity and risk-taking in generating radical product ideas; open-mindedness and

4. Overview of the studies

confidence in expressing ideas and experimenting with new ways of thinking

The key objective of our research was to empirically assess whether

appreciating works of art generated inspiration and thereby enhanced

Enjoyment and self-reported creativity, originality, and individuality

creativity. In particular, this research focused on the mediating role of
inspiration in the relationship between art appreciation and creativity.
The results of four studies provided support for our hypotheses. In
Perspective-taking; imaginativeness in a creative process

each study, we employed various measures or manipulations of art

appreciation (dispositional openness to aesthetics in Study 1, recall of
past experiences of appreciation of artworks in Study 2, and apprecia-
envisage new possibilities, and critically reflect)
Divergent thinking (alternative uses of objects)
Enhanced Torrance tests of creative thinking

Enhanced Torrance tests of creative thinking

tion of paintings and poetic lyrics in Studies 3a and 3b) as triggers of

inspiration. In order to test H1, in Study 1, we compared participants
with high versus low openness to aesthetic experiences and examined
Workplace creativity and innovation

Torrance tests of creative thinking

whether greater openness toward experiencing works of art led to

Creative work in mathematics

greater inspiration and, thus, greater creativity. To measure partici-

pants' chronic dispositional attitudes toward appreciating aesthetics
Creativity and innovation

and experiencing artworks, we used an openness-to-aesthetics scale. In

Outcome variable(s)

Study 2, we compared consumers who recalled experiencing works of

art with those who recalled their typical daily lives and examined
and openness)

whether inspiration mediated the effect of experiencing works of art on

Creativity

creativity, in line with H2. Finally, Studies 3a and 3b examined more

closely the effect of art appreciation on business-related problem-sol-
ving capability, providing a test of H3. This effect of art appreciation
was applied to problem solving in business-relevant tasks concerning
Elementary school students and
Elementary and middle school

Art-based improvisational activities (dance class; Primary-school-aged children

product design, brand-naming, and recycling solution generation,

confirming the robustness of the inspirational power of art on consumer
7- to 8-year-old children
Postgraduate students

creativity and domain-generality of art induced creativity (see Fig. 1

High school students
5-year-old children

and Table 2).

Artistic assignment in a traditional lecture setting College students
Mathematicians

MBA students
Organizations

Employees

5. Study 1
Managers

students

teachers
Targets

The goal of Study 1 was to show how openness toward aesthetics,

inspiration, and creativity are positively correlated. We also tried to
Visual arts, music, dance, and drama programs in

rule out alternative explanations for the effect by testing positive mood,
engagement, and activation as potential mediators. Aesthetic experi-
ences are in general pleasant, so they can elicit positive mood. Positive
Book-making activities; music listening

Viewing, discussing, and making art

mood has been shown to be a significant facilitator of flexible thinking,

which enhances divergent thinking ability (De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad,
Representative research for the effect of art appreciation on creativity.

2008). Moreover, aesthetic experiences are often engaging, and en-

Arts-based learning program

Art-based learning program

Art intervention programs

Art intervention programs

verbal and acting games)

gagement might increase creative performance by increasing con-

Arts-infused curriculum

centration and motivation (Higgins, 2006). Additionally, it has been

Aesthetic emotion

shown that activation influences creativity by helping individuals

Input variable(s)

Visual-art class

generate more alternative ideas and connect information (De Dreu

Drama course

et al., 2008).
schools

5.1. Procedure
Berthoin Antal and Strauß (2013)

Eighty undergraduate students (average age = 23 years; 29 fe-

Brinkmann and Sriraman (2009)
Boyle and Ottensmeyer (2005)

males) first completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory's 8-item

Openness to Aesthetics subscale (Costa & McCrae, 1992; e.g., “I am in-
trigued by patterns I find in art and nature”; 1 = strongly disagree,
Kerr and Lloyd (2008)
Park and Kim (2013)

Sowden et al. (2015)

Burton et al. (1999)

7 = strongly agree), our measure of the extent to which participants

Karakelle (2009)

Wellman (2012)
Eriksson (2009)

were inclined to experience works of art in general. Afterward, we had

Pavlou (2013)
Parker (2008)
Cote (2008)

them report their everyday levels of inspiration using the 8-item fre-
quency and intensity subscales of the Inspiration Scale (Thrash & Elliot,
Table 1

Study

2003; e.g., “I experience inspiration: 1. How often does this happen? 2.

How strongly does this happen?”; 1 = never/not strong at all, 7 = very


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

Fig. 1. Research model.

Experiencing
Inspiration Creativity
Works of Art

often/very strong) to assess the extent to which they frequently and mediated the effect of openness to aesthetics on creativity (see Fig. 2).
strongly felt inspiration in their daily lives. Then, participants re- We also ruled out positive mood, engagement, and activation as alter-
sponded to the 10-item Positive Affect subscale of the Positive Affect native explanations for the effect of openness to aesthetics on creativity.
and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, by testing as potential mediators (see Appendix A).
1988), indicating the degree to which they felt various positive emo-
tions (e.g., “interested” and “excited”) at the present time using a 5- 5.3. Discussion
point scale (1 = not at all, 5 = very strongly).
Next, to assess creativity, we asked participants to engage in an In Study 1, we showed that individuals with higher openness to
idea-generation task in which they generated as many alternative uses aesthetic experiences felt more inspired in their daily lives and in turn
for a brick as possible (Mumford, 2001). Idea-generation tasks have performed better on creativity tasks. Openness to aesthetics had a direct
been used to measure (primarily divergent) creative thinking for several effect on one of the creativity measures—the total number of ideas
decades (Runco, 2014). In addition, participants completed 9-item generated—which was consistent with the findings of prior research
Remote Associates Tests (RAT; Mednick, 1962), in which they were (Griffin & McDermott, 1998). We also replicated Thrash and Elliot's
presented with three unrelated words and had to think of a common (2003, 2004) finding that inspiration significantly influenced creativity.
word associated with all three. For example, participants might be In sum, replicating and extending prior findings, we found that the path
presented with the words “car,” “swimming,” and “cue,” and the cor- between openness to aesthetics and creativity was mediated by in-
rect response would be “pool.” The RAT items thus assessed the creative spiration using diverse measures of creativity (total number of ideas
ability to identify associations among things that are not normally as- generated, number of original ideas generated, and RAT scores). The
sociated with each other (Gilhooly & Murphy, 2005; Harkins, 2006) and null effects of positive mood, activation, and engagement on creativity
convergent creative thinking—that is, individuals' ability to develop helped to rule out alternative explanations for the observed effect.
one possible solution to a particular problem (Mednick, 1962). Parti- Study 1 was correlational, so its results could not distinguish the causal
cipants were given 3 min to complete each task. direction of this association—whether openness to aesthetics affected
Then, we assessed participants' activation using 2 items (“alert” and creativity, or creative individuals simply tended to be open to aes-
“attentive”; Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011; 1 = not at all, 7 = very thetics. Thus, we manipulated participants' experience of art in Study 2.
strongly) and their engagement using 1 item (“interested”; Higgins,
2006; 1 = not at all, 7 = very strongly). Finally, participants responded 6. Study 2
to some miscellaneous questions, including demographic measures, and
were thanked and debriefed. The objective of Study 2 was to test the robustness of the mediating
effect of inspiration. We designed Study 2 to be different from Study 1
5.2. Results in three ways. First, we manipulated aesthetic experience by asking
participants to write about a time they had experienced works of art.
To measure creativity, we counted the total number of alternative Second, we measured inspiration using items associated with evocation,
uses of a brick that each participant generated (called “fluency”; transcendence, and motivation, consistent with Thrash et al. (2010)’s
Mumford, 2001). In addition, we counted the number of original ideas tripartite conceptualization of inspiration. Third, we used participants'
for each participant by compiling the ideas generated by all partici- endorsements of creative personality adjectives (Gough, 1979) as a
pants, then counting how often each idea was mentioned by all parti- measure of creativity.
cipants, and finally counting for each participant the number of unique
ideas that had been mentioned less frequently across all participants 6.1. Procedure
(called “originality”; Baas et al., 2011; Rietzschel, De Dreu, & Nijstad,
2007). Finally, we created RAT scores by counting the total number of Sixty-two undergraduates (average age = 23 years; 31 females)
correct answers for the 9 items. were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Participants in the
Mediation analysis using a series of regressions (Baron & Kenny, experimental condition were asked to recall and describe an episode
1986) and PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2013) indicated that inspiration during which they had experienced works of art. (Exact instructions

Table 2
Overview of studies.

Study Model Independent variable Dependent variable(s) Mediator Other aspects

1 Openness to aesthetic Openness to aesthetics Idea-generation task; RAT Frequency and intensity Ruled out alternative explanations (positive
experience of inspiration affect, engagement, and activation)
→ Inspiration
→ Creativity
2 Recall of aesthetic Recalling past aesthetic experience Creative personality trait Inspiration scale
experience endorsement
→ Inspiration
→ Creativity
3a Appreciation of art Appreciating artwork (van Gogh's Product (Keyboard) design; Tested for gender effect; ruled out
→ Business creativity paintings) brand-naming alternative explanation (mood)
3b Appreciation of art Reading poetic lyrics (“Blowin’ in Recycling solution Inspiration scale Ruled out alternative explanations (mood,
→ Inspiration the Wind” by Bob Dylan) generation; brand-naming positive affect)
→ Business creativity


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

Fig. 2. Tested model in Study 1.

.326 (.003) Inspiration

.198 (.080) * β (p-value)

Openness to
Fluency 95% CI [.01, .59]
Aesthetics
.319 (.003) /.254 (.026)

.326 (.003) Inspiration

.275 (.016)

Openness to
Originality 95% CI [.06, .53]
Aesthetics
.256 (.022) / .116 (.143)

.326 (.003) Inspiration

.232 (.050)

Openness to
RAT 95% CI [.03, .35]
Aesthetics
.123 (.276) / .039 (.905)

read, “Describe a time when you appreciated works of art or something 6.3. Discussion
aesthetic.”) In the control condition, participants were instructed to
describe their typical daily lives. Study 2 showed that participants who recalled experiencing works
After the narrative task, participants responded to a 8-item in- of art felt more inspiration and identified themselves as having more
spiration scale, which included 2 items each concerning evocation, creative personalities, relative to those who recalled a typical day,
transcendence, motivation, and general inspiration (e.g., “I felt inspired providing support for H2. Study 2 also replicated findings from prior
while recalling this” and “I had important insights or revelations that I literature showing that experiencing art can transform individuals' self-
strove to express”; Thrash et al., 2010; 1 = strongly disagree, perception (Djikic, Oatley, Zoeterman, & Peterson, 2009) and that in-
7 = strongly agree). Finally, as a measure of creativity, participants dividuals' everyday levels of inspiration are positively related to self-
completed Gough's (1979) 30-item Creative Personality Scale (CPS), reported creativity (Thrash & Elliot, 2003).
which asked them to describe their current self by selecting any of 18
positively scored (e.g., “wide interests,” “self-confident,” “humorous”) 7. Study 3a
or 12 negatively scored items (e.g., “conventional,” “cautious,” “com-
monplace”). We summed scores for the 30 items to form a CPS score. One objective of Study 3 was to investigate whether the effects of art
We chose this scale as a measure of creativity because it is widely used appreciation on creative traits and creative-task performance in the
and regarded as highly reliable (Charyton & Snelbecker, 2007; previous studies would transfer to business-relevant contexts. The
Oldham & Cummings, 1996). second objective was to test the effect of art appreciation directly by
actually exposing participants to paintings or poetic lyrics.

6.2. Results 7.1. Procedure

Participants in the experimental condition had higher CPS scores than Ninety-four business school undergraduates (average age = 20 -
those in the control condition, and participants who recalled experiencing years; 47 females) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions.
art were more inspired than those who recalled their typical daily lives. They were told that they would be completing a series of surveys.
The indirect effect of recalling experiencing works of art on creativity Participants in the experimental condition were asked to freely look
through inspiration was significant (see Fig. 3 and Appendix A). through the nine prints of artworks painted by Vincent van Gogh for
3 min, including A Pair of Shoes and Garden of the Hospital in Arles (see
Appendix A), and were told that the experimenter was interested in

Fig. 3. Tested model in Study 2.

* β (p-value)
.685 (.001) Inspiration
.382 (.002)

Recall of
Creativity
experiencing
(CPS Score)
works of art
.267 (.036)/.010 (.950)
Aesthetic experiences = 1
Control = 0 95% CI [.03, 4.42]


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

their opinion of the paintings. Participants in the control condition were 8.1. Procedure
asked to freely look through nine photographs depicting objects and
landscapes analogous to those featured in the van Gogh paintings. For Seventy-nine business school students (average age = 22 years; 31
example, we used a photograph of the garden of space van Gogh in females) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Participants
Arles taken at the same place where the Garden of the Hospital in Arles in the experimental condition were asked to read the lyrics of Bob
was painted. Dylan's “Blowin’ in the Wind” and then were given 3 min to write down
After they had finished viewing the paintings or the photographs, the thoughts and feelings they experienced while reading it.
we asked participants to engage in solving practical problems of pro- Participants in the control condition were asked to write about their
duct design and brand-naming. First, participants were asked to typical daily lives for 3 min. After the writing task, participants re-
brainstorm design ideas for a new computer keyboard within 3 min sponded to the same 8 items from the Inspiration Scale used in Study 2.
(Mehta & Zhu, 2016; Experiment 6). Next, they were asked to list as Next, participants were presented with an ostensibly unrelated task in
many creative brand names as possible for a new kind of pasta product which they were asked to generate creative ideas to solve a recycling
within 3 min (De Dreu et al., 2014; Steffens, Gocłowska, problem faced by their school (Mehta & Zhu, 2016; Experiment 4).
Cruwys, & Galinsky, 2016). These two creativity tasks were chosen Specifically, they were asked to come up with ways to recycle about
because they were highly relevant to the actual process of new product 250 cases of bubble wrap packaging material left behind after a moving
development. company relocated the school's computer labs. In addition, we asked
Finally, participants responded to 4 items measuring mood participants to complete the same pasta brand-naming task used in
(1 = sad, unpleasant, negative mood, bad mood; 7 = happy, pleasant, Study 3a. After completing the two creativity tasks, participants re-
positive mood, good mood) and 1 item measuring arousal (1 = not at all sponded to the same 4 mood items used in Study 3a and the same 10
aroused; 7 = aroused). Despite the nonsignificance of mood effects in PANAS items measuring positive affect used in Study 1, as well as some
relation to art's effect on creativity in Study 1, we again included mood demographic questions. Then, they were thanked and debriefed.
measures in Study 3 because we employed a different aesthetic-ex-
perience manipulation and stimuli, and the contents of the paintings 8.2. Results
and photographs used as stimuli could have induced particular mood
states. PROCESS Model 4 with 5000 samples confirmed significant indirect
effects, through inspiration, of reading poetic lyrics on the total number
of ideas generated (fluency) and on the originality of recycling solutions
7.2. Results and creativity in brand-name generation (see Fig. 5).

To measure creativity, as in Study 1, we counted the total number of 8.3. Discussion

design ideas (fluency) and the number of original design ideas that each
participant generated (originality). In addition, we scored the pasta task In Studies 3a and 3b, we extended the effect of art appreciation to
by counting creative pasta names consistent with prior research (De creative solution generation in business-relevant contexts and found
Dreu et al., 2014; Steffens et al., 2016). We found a significant effect of further support for our hypotheses. The results of Study 3a demon-
the manipulation on the total number of ideas generated, on the ori- strated that viewing masterpieces painted by van Gogh led participants
ginality of participants' design ideas and on their creativity in the pasta- to show greater creativity in developing new designs for a computer
naming task (see Fig. 4 and Appendix A). keyboard and in generating new brand names. Study 3b showed that
reading poetic song lyrics induced inspiration, which led participants to
generate more creative solutions for recycling packaging materials as
8. Study 3b well as more creative brand names. These results imply that creativity
induced through art may transcend domains and transfer to workplace
Study 3b was designed to further test the mediating effect of in- environments through inspiration.
spiration on creativity in a business-relevant context. In this study, we
used a different manipulation of art appreciation (reading poetic lyrics) 9. Conclusion
and a different workplace creativity task (recycling solution generation)
in addition to brand-naming as a measure of business creativity. The studies reported here provide clear evidence that appreciating

Fig. 4. Results in Study 3a.

3.00
Art Non-Art
2.50
2.60 2.09
2.00

1.50
1.42 1.44
1.00 0.74 0.67
0.50

0.00
Keyboard Design Keyboard Design Creative Pasta brand
Fluency Originality naming

F(1, 91) = 4.57, p = .035 F(1, 91) = 7.57, p = .012 F(1, 91) = 4.32, p = .041


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

* β (p-value) Fig. 5. Tested model in Study 3b.

.341 (.007) Creativity
Inspiration 95% CI [.11, .76]
(Pasta Brand Naming)
.023 (.006)

Appreciation .309 (.045)

Fluency
of Artworks 95% CI [.01, .60]
(Recycling Solution)

Reading Poetry = 1
Control = 0
.230 (.002) Originality
95% CI [.07, .70]
(Recycling Solution)

art induces inspiration, which in turn facilitates performance on crea- example, analyses of patent data—would allow researchers to examine
tive tasks. We found support for our theory using several different creative idea actualization. Additionally, we suggest that future re-
measures of creativity—idea-generation tasks, RAT, and endorsement search should investigate whether different fields of art such as litera-
of creative personality traits. Moreover, the effect of art appreciation ture, music, and painting trigger different kinds of creativity—for in-
was robust across various contexts. In Study 1, individuals with higher stance, convergent versus divergent thinking. Leder, Gerger, Dressler,
openness toward aesthetics were inspired more frequently and deeply and Schabmann (2012) reported expertise-related differences in the
in their daily lives and showed greater creativity in an idea-generation aesthetic appreciation of classical, abstract, and modern art. We did not
task and RAT. Recalling personal episodes of experiencing works of art distinguish among types of art (e.g., visual art vs. music) in Study 2
generated greater inspiration and creativity compared to recalling ty- when asking participants to recall experiencing art, and it is possible
pical daily life in Study 2. Studies 3a and 3b confirmed the robustness of that the different types of art recalled had different effects on partici-
our findings by showing that the observed effects applied to creative pants' creativity. Further, future research can address whether in-
idea generation in practical, business-relevant tasks. Moreover, we dividual differences, such as in art-related knowledge (Leder et al.,
ruled out alternative explanations for the effects of art appreciation 2012), personal characteristics, and past experiences (Tinio, 2013), or
(positive mood, activation, engagement, and energetic arousal), sup- societal and historical factors such as current trends (Jacobsen, 2006;
porting the mediating effect of inspiration. Tinio, 2013) promote or preclude the effect of inspiration on creativity
Our research theoretically contributes to the literature on the effects while people are appreciating art.
of art on creativity by highlighting the inspiration triggered by works of Our findings suggest several practical implications. The results
art as an important mediator facilitating creative cognition. Earlier strongly imply that art-based curricula or the art intervention programs
research on creativity-inducing art interventions was grounded more in increasingly practiced in companies can be highly effective for enhan-
practical settings, such as art-based curricula and art intervention cing workplace and consumer creativity. Thus, we suggest that firms
programs in schools and firms, where it might be difficult to control for should employ more art-related creativity training programs to increase
the confounding effects of other environmental factors. The current their employees' creative problem-solving abilities, especially in the
research investigated the effects of art in experimental settings, where context of new product development. Most U.S. firms do not provide
the mediation and main effects could be established by ruling out any type of formal creativity training for employees working in key
possible alternative explanations. areas of innovation such as new product design (Burroughs et al.,
Our work suggests additional questions to be answered by future 2011). Our results show that simply displaying art in the work en-
research. For example, is the inspirational effect of art short-lived, or vironment could enhance employees' creative capabilities, thereby
can it last over the long term? The inspirational effect on creativity we driving innovation.
observed a few minutes after priming art appreciation might dissipate
with time; alternatively, it might last longer and, potentially, be
Conflicts of interest
stronger when triggered in real-world settings, such as within art mu-
seums or organizations. Future research should thus examine how well
None.
the effect of art appreciation applies outside the lab. Though we used
various methods to measure creativity that could be considered prac-
tical in the experimental contexts, examining whether participants Acknowledgment
transformed their creative ideas into actual creative products was be-
yond the scope of our studies. Analyses of archival or secondary field This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of
data on creative outcomes based on real product assessments—for Korea grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2017066512).

Appendix A. Supplemental analyses

A.1. Study 1: mediation effect of inspiration and ruling out alternative explanations

A bootstrap procedure using PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2013) with 5000 samples confirmed that the indirect effects were all significant—total
number of ideas generated: 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.01, 0.59]; number of original ideas generated: 95% CI = [0.06, 0.53]; RAT scores:
95% CI = [0.03, 0.35].
Mediation analysis using a series of regressions showed that openness to aesthetics significantly predicted positive affect (p = 0.015), but positive
affect did not increase the total number of ideas generated (p = 0.310), the number of original ideas generated (p = 0.159), or RAT scores
(p = 0.841). In addition, openness to aesthetics positively influenced activation (p = 0.005) and engagement (p = 0.005). However, the effect of
activation was not significant on any of the measures of creativity (ps > 0.454). Engagement did not predict creativity scores (ps > 0.074). Hayes'
PROCESS Model 4 generated the 95% CIs based on 5000 bootstrap samples and they all included zero, confirming that the indirect effects through
positive affect, activation, and engagement on creativity scores were all nonsignificant.


D. An, N. Youn -RXUQDORI%XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK²

A.2. Study 2: the effect of recalling experience of art on inspiration and creativity

A one-way ANOVA yielded a significant effect of recalling experiencing works of art on creativity, F(1, 60) = 4.60, p = 0.036. Participants in the
experimental condition had higher CPS scores (M = 4.86) than those in the control condition (M = 2.45). The manipulation had a significant effect
on participants' inspiration scores, F(1, 60) = 52.92, p < 0.001. Participants who recalled experiencing art were more inspired (M = 4.55) than
those who recalled their typical daily lives (M = 2.86).

A.3. Study 3a: Ruling out alternative explanations

A one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) including gender as a covariate revealed a significant effect of the manipulation on the total number
of ideas generated, but no significant effect of gender, F(1, 91) = 2.21, p = 0.141. We tested for a gender effect because of possible gender dif-
ferences in art appreciation (Baer & Kaufman, 2005; Cramond, 1994). ANCOVAs revealed the predicted main effects of condition on the originality of
participants' design ideas and on their creativity in the pasta-naming task, again with no significant gender effect (see Fig. 4). An ANCOVA revealed
no significant differences in mood, F(1, 90) = 0.48, p = 0.621, or arousal, F(1, 91) = 0.35, p = 0.709, between the experimental and control
conditions.

A.4. Study 3b: ruling out alternative explanations

Results revealed no significant indirect effects on the originality of recycling solution generation through positive affect (95% CI = [−0.29,
0.14]) or mood (95% CI = [−0.03, 0.48]) or on creativity in pasta brand-naming through positive affect (95% CI = [−0.25, 0.15] or mood (95%
CI = [−0.32, 0.05]).

Appendix B. Study 3a stimuli examples

Experiment condition Control condition

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