ABSTRACT

Background and objectives: The complexities of daily life often necessitate creative ideas to successfully cope with negative social situations. This study investigated the relationship of two types of creativity that may be elicited by similar contexts but are associated with different goals and impact of ideas: reappraisal inventiveness (the capability to generate manifold reappraisals for negative situations) and malevolent creativity, capturing the inventiveness in intentionally harming others.

Design and methods: In 73 women, these variables were assessed by performance tests depicting real-life, anger-eliciting situations. Additionally, participants reported their trait anger and depressive symptoms.

Results: Inventiveness (ideational fluency) was positively correlated between the two tasks, probably indicating shared divergent thinking demands. A more intricate pattern emerged for quality aspects of generated ideas. Participants inventing particularly harmful ideas for damaging others generated fewer valid reappraisals and displayed less problem-oriented thinking during reappraisal. Greater inventiveness in damaging others was linked to more revenge-related ideation during reappraisal attempts, which also correlated with self-reported depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: A higher capacity for malevolent ideation may potentially hamper successful coping with stressful, anger-eliciting events and, as a result, may advance an adverse spiral of reinforcement. Considering these links may help tailor psychotherapeutic interventions to individuals’ specific predispositions.

摘要

背景和目标：日常生活的复杂性往往需要创造性的想法来成功应对消极的社会情况。这项研究调查了两种类型的创造力之间的关系，这两种创造力可能由相似的环境引发，但与不同的目标和想法的影响相关：重新评估创造力（对负面情况进行多种重新评估的能力）和恶意创造力，捕捉故意的创造性伤害他人。

设计和方法：在 73 名女性中，通过描绘现实生活中引发愤怒的情况的表现测试来评估这些变量。此外，参与者报告了他们的愤怒和抑郁症状。

结果：两项任务之间的创造力（理念流畅性）呈正相关，这可能表明共同的发散性思维需求。对于所产生的想法的质量方面出现了更复杂的模式。发明特别有害的想法来损害他人的参与者产生的有效重新评估较少，并且在重新评估期间表现出较少的以问题为导向的思维。伤害他人的更大创造力与重新评估尝试期间更多与复仇相关的想法有关，这也与自我报告的抑郁症状相关。

结论：较高的恶意思维能力可能会妨碍成功应对压力大、引发愤怒的事件，因此可能会加剧负面的强化螺旋。考虑这些联系可能有助于根据个人的具体倾向制定心理治疗干预措施。