Mortality salience and task condition on creativity in brainstorming

Daily routine life and work life require new, different and original creations. Many creative techiques are recommended in the literature. Among them are brainstorming that has been received a great deal of research attention and are widely used in many areas. This technique leads to the development and enhancement of creative potentials in individuals, groups and teams. More recently, terror management theory (TMT) has been investigated in many studies and newly studied topic in our country. Recently, TMT becomes a subject in a lot of studies and also it was studied frequently in our country. But, it was seen that the influence of brainstorming defined in the literature on creativity that comed in as a result of defense mechanisms (cultural worldview and self-esteem) occured in case of remembering the mortality salience was not studied. Two experiments were conducted to see whether or not mortality salience and task type (e.g., leaving a legacy) would have an effect on creativity. In Experiment I the participants were reminded a mortality salience, some were a tooth pain. Those in the control condition were not received any information or task. The half of subjects were exposed to a leaving legancy problem, while the rest of them were exposed to a paper clip problem. Findings showed that the participants in the mortality salience generated fewer ideas than those in the control condition. Those in the leaving lagacy condition also generated more ideas than those in the paper clip problem. In Experiment II mortality salience was manipulated on two accounts: present mortality and future mortality. As was the case in Experiment I, the half of subjects were exposed to a leaving legacy problem, while the rest of them were exposed to a paper clip problem. Findings showed that the participants in the present mortality salience generated more ideas than those in the future mortality one. Those in the leaving legacy condition also generated more ideas than those in the paper clip problem. These findings were discussed in the lights of TMT and brainstorming literature.