A Time for Creativity Too? How Past-Versus Future-Oriented Thinking Facilitates Creativity

Future-oriented thinking appears conducive to fostering creativity. However, various unreconciled theoretical accounts have been proposed, and whether past-oriented thinking facilitates creativity has been under-explored. By leveraging differing expectations associated with past-oriented thinking, this paper compares the (1) creativity-facilitating schemas, (2) construal level theory, and (3) conceptual combination hypotheses of how time-oriented thought relates to creativity. This research conducted two experiments simultaneously investigating past-, present-, and future-oriented thought (Study 1, N = 258) and inducing the juxtaposition of past and present time frames (Study 2, N = 205). Results replicated and supported the creativity-facilitating schema hypothesis. Furthermore, the current research revealed an interesting possibility that the schema and construal level explanations operate antagonistically to create a suppression effect in the link between past-oriented thinking and creativity. This research provides insights into how time-oriented thought impacts creativity and calls attention to some nuanced directions that future research could address.