Creative thinking is the ability to produce responses that are both original and useful. Like other complex thinking processes, creative thinking draws on higher-order cognitive resources. The impacts of feedback, cognitive load, and self-efficacy on traditional complex thinking activities are well documented; however, little is known about how these factors influence creative thinking, which is unique in its requirement of originality. We investigated the impacts of social comparison performance feedback and creative self-efficacy on cognitive load during two creative thinking (divergent thinking) tasks. Higher creative self-efficacy was associated with lower cognitive load during creative thinking. Positive feedback was associated with lower cognitive load compared to negative feedback. Higher cognitive load negatively impacted creative thinking performance, and the impacts of creative self-efficacy and performance feedback on creative thinking were partially mediated by cognitive load. Implications for providing feedback to students during creative thinking tasks are discussed.

创造性思维是指产生既新颖又有用的回应的能力。像其他复杂的思维过程一样，创造性思维也需要更高阶的认知资源。反馈，认知负荷和自我效能对传统复杂思维活动的影响已得到充分记录；然而，关于这些因素如何影响创造性思维的知识鲜为人知，这在其独创性方面是独一无二的。在两个创造性思维（发散性思维）任务中，我们调查了社会比较表现反馈和创造性自我效能对认知负荷的影响。创造性思维过程中，较高的创造力自我效能与较低的认知负荷相关。与负反馈相比，正反馈与较低的认知负荷相关。较高的认知负荷对创造性思维的表现产生负面影响，认知自我部分地调节了创造性自我效能和绩效反馈对创造性思维的影响。讨论了在创造性思维任务中向学生提供反馈的含义。