The Impact of Positive Versus Negative Exemplar-Based Instructions on a Creative Writing Task

Some types of instructions for creativity tasks (such as explicitly telling people to be creative) can boost performance. Showing people examples or telling them ways of approaching the problem before they begin a creativity task can help, but results are mixed about whether it is better to emphasize positive examples/approaches that can be emulated or negative examples/approaches that should be avoided. In this study, 198 participants wrote two brief essays—one under a positive exemplar instructional condition and one under a negative exemplar instructional condition. The results showed that the stories of participants written under the positive instructional condition were rated significantly higher in overall creativity, originality, and humor than the stories written under the negative instructional condition. Results are discussed in light of previous findings.