The role of inhibitory control in creative cognition: exploring a multifaceted relationship

Creative cognition is often argued to involve a degree of inhibitory control, but it remains unclear what amount, and type, of inhibitory control is relevant to which type of creative cognition. Some evidence suggests that creative performance benefits from stronger inhibition (particularly in laboratory settings), while other evidence suggests that it benefits from weaker inhibition. Supposing that this variation in findings might be due to the multifaceted nature of both inhibitory control and creative cognition, we sought to clarify the relationship between these constructs using several measures of each, using factor analysis and regressions. We examined creative cognition using two measures of divergent thinking (the alternative uses task and a figural completion drawing task), and a measure of convergent thinking (the remote associates test). We examined inhibitory control using two measures of response inhibition (the Stroop and the Emotional Stroop), a measure of cognitive inhibition (retrieval-induced forgetting), and a measure of latent inhibition. Participants (N = 151) also completed measures of personality, intelligence, self-monitoring, and real-world creative achievement. Results revealed that cognitive inhibition was a significant predictor of divergent thinking after accounting for both trait openness and fluid intelligence, but was unrelated to convergent thinking or real-world creative achievement. Meanwhile, response inhibition and latent inhibition were not significantly related to any measure of creative cognition. These findings shed light on the nuanced relationship between inhibitory control and creative cognition, and highlight the importance of assessing these multifaceted constructs with a variety of measures.