Intellectual risk taking: A moderating link between creative confidence and creative behavior?

Abstract

Having confidence in one’s creative ability seems necessary for creative behavior. The relationship, however, may not be as direct as creativity researchers have initially posited. Previous research on the relationship between creative confidence (CC) and creative behavior (CB) has yielded mixed findings. Moreover, emerging theoretical and empirical work suggests that the CC–CB relationship is moderated by other beliefs. In this exploratory study, we examined the relationship among intellectual risk taking (IRT), CC, and CB. Specifically, we tested 2 theoretical propositions. The first involved examining the posited relationship between creative confidence and creative behaviors. Consistent with our expectations, our preliminary results indicate positive, albeit somewhat modest correlations between creative confidence and creative achievements (r = .33), creative achievements in the arts (r = .17), creative achievements in science (r = .27), and participation in creative activities (r = .35). The second proposition involved examining whether IRT moderates the relationship between CC and CB. Our results indicate that IRT did serve as a moderator in the relationship between CC and CB. Specifically, our preliminary results indicate that willingness to take intellectual risks enhances the relationship between CC and CB. Moreover, our findings also indicate that at very low levels of IRT, there is no relationship between CC and CB. In sum, our results suggest that even if people have high levels of confidence in their creativity, they may also need to be willing to take the creative risks in order for creative confidence to develop into creative behavior. Theoretical and research implications of these findings are also discussed.

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