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Even people who tend to think conventionally, such as accountants, can be creative, a recent study suggests, if they can look at emotional situations in a different light. In a set of experiments, researchers found that conventional thinkers came up with more creative ideas than peers after they practised "emotional reappraisal". This means viewing a situation through another emotional lens, such as trying to see an anger-inducing event as one that is neutral or hopeful.

The study indicates that creativity is something that can be trained. "Whenever we break away from our existing perspective and try to think about something that's different from our initial reaction, there's a creative element to it. If we can practise or train that flexible-thinking muscle, it may help us be more creative over time," said lead author Lily Zhu, an assistant professor at Washington State University.

For the study, Zhu and her colleagues conducted two similar experiments. In the first experiment with 335 people recruited through a crowdsourcing platform, the participants were first ranked on their openness levels and then shown a film scene designed to elicit (引起)anger. While viewing, they were given different instructions: to suppress their emotions, to think about something else to distract themselves or to try emotional reappraisal-looking at the scene through another lens. Some were also given no instruction on how to regulate their feelings.

After viewing the film, the participants were asked to come up with an idea to use an empty space in their building. Those ideas were then evaluated by a panel of experts who did not know anything about the participants. Ideas such as using the space for "napping capsules" were considered highly creative whereas ideas like opening a similar cafeteria as before were considered low in creativity.

The next experiment had a different group of 177 participants write about an experience that made them angry. They were then tasked with either writing about it again from a different emotional perspective or writing about something else as a distraction.

In both experiments, conventional thinking participants who tried emotional reappraisal came up with more creative ideas than other conventional thinkers who used suppression, distraction or no emotional regulation strategy at all. Notably, for participants who were considered creative thinkers to begin with, emotional reappraisal did not seem to have much effect on their creativity.

As to the implications of the study, Zhu suggested that supervisors in workplace should develop trainings to cultivate creative thinking skills in employees. Individuals can also practise emotional reappraisal when confronted with a crisis or challenge instead of suppressing negative emotions.