The Role of Self-Conscious Emotions in Everyday Creativity: A Daily Diary Study

Everyday creativity refers to the mundane and ubiquitous expressions of originality and meaningfulness that occupy people’s time on a daily basis. A prevalent view in the literature has been that mood, affect, and emotions are potential predictors of everyday creativity (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008; Davis, 2009). However, when it comes to self-conscious emotions, little research has investigated their link with creativity in general, and, more specifically, the link with everyday creativity. In the current study, I investigated the relationship between self-conscious emotions and everyday creativity across time by employing a daily diary design. For this, I recruited N = 154 participants from the student population at the University of Houston via the SONA system. Participants first completed a baseline questionnaire assessing demographics, creativity, and personality traits. Then, participants completed online daily diaries assessing self-conscious emotions and creativity over a 14-day period. I employed a hierarchical level analysis, in which days (level 1, assessing within-person factors) were nested within persons (level 2, assessing between-person factors). The results showed that authentic pride, hubristic pride, guilt, and nostalgia were positively associated with everyday creativity. Shame was negatively associated with everyday creativity. Theoretical implications regarding the motivational function of self-conscious emotions are discussed. Moreover, I present the applied implications of the findings for organizational creativity