Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Psychology of Sport & Exercise journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport Do more creative people adapt better? An investigation into the association between creativity and adaptation Veronique Richard a,* , Jean-Charles Lebeau a,b , Fabian Becker a , Erik R. Inglis a , Gershon Tenenbaum a a Florida State University, United States b Ball State University, United States ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Creativity Divergent thinking Motor creativity Adaptation Motor challenge ABSTRACT Objective: Some evidence suggests an association between creativity and adaptability; yet this relationship has not been tested empirically. The present study aimed at testing experimentally whether cognitive and motor creativity are associated with the psychological, behavioral, and affective dimensions of adaptation when failing to reach a motor task goal. Design and method: Forty-five students were asked to complete a motor circuit under pressure. After setting their own goal, participants had up to 10 attempts to reach that goal and were told that they failed after each attempt. Perception of task difficulty and self-efficacy were measured before the first attempt. Persistent and variable behaviors were recorded during the task. Finally, upon completion of the motor circuit, participants completed the affect grid and were tested for their cognitive and motor creativity. Results: Correlational analyses revealed that cognitive and motor creativity are separate but related entities. A series of linear regression analyses revealed that motor (but not cognitive) creativity was significantly associated with probability of adaptation (r = 0.31). Flexibility in motor creativity predicted perception of task difficulty whereas originality was a significant predictor of persistent behavior. Conclusions: Some similarities exist in the processes underlying both the generation of creative thoughts and movements. Being able to produce a large number of flexible and original motor solutions seem to offer an adaptation advantage. Each creativity dimension has a separate but complementary influence on the psycho- logical, affective, and behavioral dimensions of adaptation. 1. Introduction Creativity refers to novel and useful solutions to open-ended pro- blems people encounter in their daily lives (Runco, 2014). According to the cognitive conceptualization of creativity, divergent thinking (DT) allows an individual to generate many alternative ideas (Runco, 1999a). Because divergent thinkers have a fuller cognitive toolbox from which to pull diverse potential solutions (Kaufman, Plucker, & Baer, 2008; Runco & Acar, 2012), creativity has been tied to various adap- tation processes (Runco, 1999b, 2014). Creative thinking is thus a cri- tical psychological resource associated with a number of benefits that are useful in multiple domains (Rutkowska & Gierczuk, 2012). In the motor domain, creativity has been empirically examined and associated with the creation of novel patterns of movement (Hristovski, Davids, Araujo, & Passos, 2011), outstanding decision-making during game play (see Memmert, 2015, for a review), and training and competition adaptations (Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2002). Furthermore, the expres- sion of original and functional motor actions has been identified as an important asset of adaptability (Davids, Araújo, Seifert, & Orth, 2015; Hristovski et al., 2011; Orth, Van der Kamp, Memmert, & Savelsbergh, 2017). Therefore, the production of new motor patterns for either a solution to a pre-established problem or a bodily expression of an idea or an emotion is defined as motor creativity (Bournelli, Makri, & Mylonas, 2009; Wyrick, 1968). Several environmental constraints have been implemented to test how the motor system adapt into new movement patterns (Orth et al., 2017; Seifert, Komar, Araujo, & Davids, 2016). Yet, the relationship between creativity and adaptation to goal failure remains underexplored in the motor domain. Consequently, the current study aimed at testing experimentally how both divergent thinking and motor creativity influence individual's psychological, be- havioral, and affective adaptation when failing to reach a motor task goal (see Fig. 1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.06.001 Received 5 December 2017; Received in revised form 31 May 2018; Accepted 1 June 2018 * Corresponding author. College of Education, Florida State University, 600 W College Ave., Tallahassee, FL 32306, United States. E-mail address: vrichard2@fsu.edu (V. Richard). Psychology of Sport & Exercise 38 (2018) 80–89 Available online 02 June 2018 1469-0292/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T