Effects Of Social Anxiety And Topic Sensitivity On Creativity:Evidences From Behavioral And Eye Tracking Study

Creativity refers to the ability to generate original and appropriate ideas or products.It plays an indispensable role in promoting the development of individuals and even the human race.Previous studies indicate that researchers have not yet reached a consensus regarding the impact of social anxiety on creativity,possibly because they have ignored the effect of the characteristics of tasks and only employed homogeneous creativity tasks.Therefore,in this study,electronic brainstorming and eye-tracking technology were used to explore the effects of social anxiety and topic sensitivity on creativity,and the distribution of attention to others’ ideas in terms of social anxiety and creativity through two experiments.In Experiment I,we examined the effects of social anxiety and topic sensitivity on creativity using a 2(social anxiety:high vs.low)× 2(topic sensitivity:high vs.low)mixed design,with the creativity score(fluency,originality,and appropriateness)as the dependent variable.Social anxiety was the between-group variable,and topic sensitivity was the within-group variable.The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and the Social Phobia Scale were used to screen 40 participants each with high and low levels of social anxiety.All participants completed two creativity tasks with different degree of topic sensitivities.The results showed that first,the main effect of social anxiety was significant.Compared to participants with low levels of social anxiety,participants with high levels scored lower on originality.Second,the main effect of topic sensitivity was significant.Compared low topic sensitivity tasks,participants generated fewer ideas and scored higher appropriateness on high topic sensitivity tasks.Third,the interaction between social anxiety and topic sensitivity was significant.Participants with high levels of social anxiety scored lower on originality for tasks with high levels of topic sensitivity,whereas the difference in originality between participants with low and high levels of social anxiety was not significant.In Experiment 2,we investigated the influence of social anxiety on the attention of others toward various sensitive topics,with a 2(social anxiety:high vs.low)×2(topic sensitivity:high vs.low)mixed design.Social anxiety was the between-group variable and topic sensitivity were the within-group variable.The dependent variables were creative performance and attention to others’ ideas,including the average fixation time,total fixation time,and number of fixations.The results showed that first,the main effect of social anxiety was not significant.Second,the main effect of topic sensitivity was significant,and participants paid more attention to others’ ideas for tasks associated with highly sensitive topics.Third,the interaction between social anxiety and topic sensitivity was marginally significant.For highly sensitive topics,people with high levels of social anxiety paid more attention to others’ ideas.