Premium
The Effects of Zhongyong Thinking Priming on Creative Problem‐Solving
Author(s) -
Zhou Zhijin,
Zhang Hongpo,
Li Mingzhu,
Sun Cuicui,
Luo Hualin
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the journal of creative behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.896
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2162-6057
pISSN - 0022-0175
DOI - 10.1002/jocb.441
Subject(s) - divergent thinking , psychology , convergent thinking , test (biology) , priming (agriculture) , lateral thinking , torrance tests of creative thinking , parallel thinking , creative problem solving , creativity , vertical thinking , thinking processes , critical thinking , creative thinking , cognition , improvisation , social psychology , mathematics education , germination , botany , biology , paleontology , art , neuroscience , visual arts , statistical thinking
Zhongyong thinking is a common approach adopted by Chinese people to solve problems encountered in life and work. Based on the four modes of zhongyong thinking proposed by Pang (Social Sciences in China, 1, 1980, 75), this study chooses the “neither A nor B” form, which represents the “mean” (中) characteristics of zhongyong thinking, called eclectic thinking, and the “both A and B” form, which reflects the “harmony” (和) feature, called integrated thinking. This study primed eclectic thinking and integrated thinking, respectively, through self‐compiled problem situations, and 150 college students and postgraduates students were the participants. Experiment 1 explored the role of the priming of zhongyong thinking in three classic creative thinking tasks: a divergent thinking test, remote association test, and insight problem‐solving test. Experiment 2 further examined the effect of priming of zhongyong thinking on “market investment problems” with higher ecological validity. The findings show that priming integrated thinking can improve remote associates test performance and promote creative solutions to market investment problems, but there is no significant impact on the scores of divergent thinking test and insight problem‐solving; priming eclectic thinking has no significant impact on any of the subsequent creative tasks. This study shows that integrated thinking primes cognitive processing related to information association and information integration, promoting subsequent creative tasks.