Perception of emotion, alexithymia and creative potential q F. Zenasni * , T.I. Lubart Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurosciences Cognitives, Université Paris-Descartes, CNRS-8089, 71 Avenue Edouard Vaillant, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France article info Article history: Received 13 February 2008 Received in revised form 28 October 2008 Accepted 31 October 2008 Available online 16 December 2008 Keywords: Creativity Ability EI Alexythimia Emotional creativity Divergent thinking abstract Theoretical proposals suggest that emotional intelligence (EI) may favor creativity. In the present paper, two studies are reported with French adults to examine the degree to which the ability to identify emo- tion is related to creative performance. This component of ability EI was hypothesized to be positively associated with a divergent thinking task involving emotional information. Contrary to our expectations, the first study (n = 95) indicated that ability to identify emotions in faces and images was negatively related to idea generation ability. The second study (n = 100) including a measure of alexithymia con- firmed this relation. Moreover, evaluating emotional creativity, we observed a significant negative link between the ability to identify emotions and the tendency to experience emotions differently from those of others. We discuss these results suggesting an opposition between consensual/convergent thinking concerning emotions (ability EI) and divergent thinking. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The impact of emotional states on creativity has been examined in a large range of studies (Zenasni & Lubart, 2008). Results from these studies diverge. Some studies show that positive emotional state favors creativity whereas others show that it inhibits it. Moreover, studies have suggested that stable emotional character- istics modulate the impact of emotional experiences on creativity. George and Zhou (2002) found that clarity-of-feelings trait is pos- itively associated with creative performance. This result is consis- tent with the idea that the ability to treat emotional information favors creativity: emotional intelligence (EI) may favor clear per- ception of an emotional context and thus foster creative productions. Two kinds of models of EI currently exist: trait EI and ability EI. As indicated by Petrides, Pita, and Kokkinaki (2007), ‘‘trait EI (or trait emotional self-efficacy) concerns emotion related dispositions and self-perceptions measured via self-report, whereas ability EI (or cognitive-emotional ability) concerns emotion-related cogni- tive abilities measured via performance-based tests” (p. 273; see also Keele & Bell, 2008). Some theories suggest that EI may significantly favor creativity. Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey (1999) suggest that EI helps individuals to have clear thoughts which favor intuition and insight processes. Ivcevic, Brackett, and Mayer (2007) added that ability EI enables a person to maintain or increase positive mood and thus may indi- rectly favor creative thinking. Some empirical data support the hypothesis that trait EI favors creativity. For example, Wolfradt, Felfe, and Koster (2002) exam- ined the relationship between Petrides and Furnham’s model of trait EI evaluated by the emotional intelligence scale (EIS; Schutte et al., 1998) and creative personality using the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979). Their results indicate moderate to strong cor- relations (from r = .36 to r = .55, p < .001) between creative person- ality and four factors of trait EI (self-efficacy 1 , empathy, utilization, and perceiving) evaluated by the EIS. These studies are limited because they focus on creativity as a self-reported behaviour. Few investigations have examined the im- pact of trait EI on creativity using performance-based measures such as the production of creative products or divergent thinking. Guastello, Guastello, and Hanson (2004) using four test from the comprehensive Ability Battery (Hakstian & Cattell, 1976) and the ‘‘What if” task (Guastello, 1994), did not observe any significant relationships (r from .00 to .12) between trait EI (evaluated by the EIS) and divergent thinking scores. In contrast, when evaluat- ing the creative personality with the 16 PF (Cattell, Cattell, & Cat- tell, 1994), they observed that the more individuals are able to treat emotions, the more they reported creative behaviours (r = .32, p < .01). Ivcevic et al. (2007) examined relationships between ability EI, emotional creativity (EC) and creativity using performance-based measures. Ability EI was evaluated using the Mayer–Salovey– Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT, 2002). Scores of 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.10.030 q This research was supported by a grant from the Programme Cognitique from the French Ministry of Education. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 (0) 1 55 20 59 93. E-mail address: franck.zenasni@gmail.com (F. Zenasni). 1 In this research, Self-Efficacy with the management of emotions includes both understanding and regulating feelings in the self. Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 353–358 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid