Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Incubation effect refers to the phenomenon that when people are confronted with an unsolvable problem, they temporarily put it aside and switch to complete other irrelevant tasks instead, which is beneficial to the ultimate solution of the original problem. In recent years, researchers have conducted extensive studies on incubation effect of creative thinking and its influences, and put forward many theories to explain incubation effect. The representative theories include “selective forgetting theory”, “spreading activation and cue assimilation theory” and “unconscious work theory”. They explain the mechanism of incubation effect from different perspectives and predict different influences and phenomena respectively. For example, the attention-withdrawal theory supposes that the length of incubation will not influence the incubation effect. And the forgetting-fixation theory recommended a longer break to incubate. Furthermore, some factors are mentioned in many theories, such as the length of incubation and the length of preparation period. So the empirical researches about them can be explained by these related theories. While some factors are only mentioned by a few theories. For example, the function of beneficial cues can only be explained by the opportunistic assimilation theory. However, the research field of incubation effect has begun to combine with mind wandering and sleep. Many of the results of these studies are difficult to be well explained by the above theories, but should be explained in the light of the characteristics of mind wandering and sleep. Until now, related researches of mind wandering and sleep further shed light on the mechanism behind incubation effect. For example, mind wandering increases unconscious associate processing to serve creative problem-solving. Sleep, as a special long period of incubation, may promote problem solving through various mechanisms such as the reconstruction of memory representation and the reactivation of memory. But there is also conflicting evidence as to whether mind wandering and sleep promote the incubation effect. There are many studies that have failed to prove the effect of mind wandering and sleep on creative problem solving. The psychological processes underlying the incubation effect includes at least two cognitive components: the transformation of problem representation and the formation of remote associations. Different brain mechanisms are responsible for these two basic components. During the incubation period, memory systems are regulated by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to break the fixation caused by false assumptions. The cooperation of right frontal lobe, temporal lobe and parietal lobe was beneficial to assimilation of beneficial cues. The striatum-hippocampus-prefrontal lobe network continued to catalyze the reconstruction of representations during incubation period. Mind wandering promotes insight through the interaction of the medial temporal lobe, default network and executive network. The research on sleep can reflect the mechanism of long-term incubation in real life, and future research can further investigate the role of different sleep stages and their corresponding brain mechanisms. Future research needs to improve the ecological validity of relevant studies, promote the development of incubation theories, improve reproducibility, explore the positive factors that promote the incubation effect, and pay attention to the relationship between the incubation effect and emotion or other non-cognitive factors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Cognitive reappraisal plays an important role in regulating negative emotions. However, traditional cognitive reappraisal has some issues, such as a lower reconstruction degree and a lower emotion regulation effect. Considering these issues, we propose an effective emotion regulation strategy called creative cognitive reappraisal, which refers to a novel and unique interpretation that is highly creative and appropriate for current emotional stimuli. During the emotion regulation process, an individual suddenly experiences an "Aha!" moment when combining the interpretation with the stimulus situation. This study found a dramatic shift from negative to positive emotions and a long-lasting regulatory effect. According to imaging results, creative cognitive reappraisal was associated with the formation of a novel association in the hippocampus and positive emotional arousal in the amygdala. However, the guided reappraisal used in this work was more akin to an understanding of reappraisal interpretation than active emotion regulation, which has lower ecological validity. Furthermore, it is difficult to generate high creative reappraisal on one’s own, making the application of creative cognitive reappraisal challenging. Thus, the goal of this project is to teach participants how to learn the method of creative cognitive reappraisal and then transfer and apply this strategy to specific negative emotion regulation in daily life, i.e., to establish a "learn and then use" emotion regulation mode that can truly play the role of creative cognitive reappraisal during emotion regulation. Furthermore, because teenagers have more serious mood problems but also have higher creativity, this project intends to apply a creative cognitive reappraisal strategy for emotion regulation to teenagers while also teaching them creative emotion regulation strategies to assist them in learning cognitive transformations and reconstructions. This method can teach teenagers how to use positive emotional regulation strategies to deal with negative life events while also preserving their creativity. The specific research contents are as follows: 1) exploring the transfer effect of creative cognitive reappraisal in negative emotion regulation of college students and adolescents; 2) investigating changes in brain activation and representation patterns before and after creative cognitive reappraisal transfer; and 3) examining the similarities and differences in the neural mechanisms of creative cognitive reappraisal transfer between adolescents and adults. This project is an extension and expansion of the applicant's existing work, and it would establish a theoretical foundation for verifying and promoting creative cognitive reappraisal as a learnable, usable and efficient emotional regulation strategy.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Experimental Psychology submitted time 2019-09-14
Abstract： The theory of catharsis believes that venting can effectively alleviate anger and aggressive impulses. However, a large number of experimental studies about the effects of direct catharsis, indirect catharsis and target catharsis on aggression have revealed the potential harm of catharsis on aggression and its functional mechanism, the catharsis can’t reduce anger but increase aggression through factors such as cognitive processing. Even so, the public still favors this seemingly convenient way of regulating emotion, for example catharsis equipment has become the standard equipment of psychological counseling institutions. This not only suggests people's unilateral cognition of psychological catharsis, but also reflects the lack of scientific and standardized construction of our social psychological service system. Future research should focused on the potential problems and its possible solutions in the current widespread application of catharsis equipment that used as a mean of modern psychological intervention.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2019-01-28
Abstract： Although previous studies have found that a conformity effect exists widely, whether people are affected by groups in the evaluation of creative products, the new products with the basic characteristics of novelty and practicability, remains a question to be studied. Compared to artistic products, such products are closely related to real life, reflecting actual creativity, and they are typical creative products in life. Although such products reveal new perspectives for consumers, they also promote a sense of uncertainty. Research shows that when faced with uncertainty, participants are more likely to follow others. Almost all studies on this subject have involved the evaluation of creativity, yet novelty and practicability are two important aspects of creativity. Researchers have studied the characteristics of creativity or creative products; however, creative products can be divided into innovative products and renovative products according to their originality. Therefore, we plan to compare the conformity effect of the two kinds of creative products in the evaluation of novelty and practicability in this study. An “initial evaluation–conformity induced–delay re-evaluation” paradigm was used in Experiment 1, in which participants were first asked to evaluate the practicability (or novelty) of creative products; then the 200 undergraduates' average rating and the participants' own ratings were revealed. The group rating would be revealed as higher or lower than or similar to the participants' rating. Thirty-minutes later, participants evaluated the task again were entirely unexpected. To further analyze the difference in conformity degree between the two types of creative products, the subjects were required to make a certainty judgment on the novelty and practicality of the product in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 revealed that participants had decreased their practicability (or novelty) ratings when the group rating was lower than their first rating, increased their practicability (or novelty) ratings when the group rating was higher than their first rating, and did not change their ratings significantly when the group rating was comparable to their first rating. In the evaluation of practicability, it was found that the conformity of variation (the second rating–the first rating) of innovative products was significantly higher than that of renovative products. Nevertheless, in the evaluation of novelty, the two types of creative products had the same conformity of variation. Similarly, Experiment 2 found that the uncertainty of the evaluation of the practicability of the innovative product was greater than that of the renovative product. In the evaluation of the novelty of the two kinds of products, the degree of uncertainty was the same. In summary, both the evaluation of novelty and the practicability of creative products had a conformity effect. In the practicality evaluation of innovative products, it was easier for respondents to follow others, which might be caused by the greater uncertainty in the practical evaluation of innovative products than in that of renovative products. Nevertheless, in the absence of knowledge of new things, blindly following the crowd is likely to have unimaginable consequences. For long-term development, we should fully understand that innovative products are practical and decide what to do the next. "
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