Cognitive Flexibility Promotes Creativity for Securely(but not Fearfully) Attached People

As creativity is a crucial attribute for companies' survival and innovative success, many firms encourage and implement ways to promote employee creativity. Previous studies in the dual pathway to creativity model have shown that creativity can be enhanced when either the cognitive flexibility or cognitive persistence path is triggered. Although individuals have different personal traits, prior research has rarely investigated whether one pathway is more effective for a certain personality in promoting creativity than the other. Using attachment theory, we examined the influence of attachment style on the degree of the impact of each path on creativity. Specifically, we hypothesized that securely attached people would show higher creativity only when they use the cognitive flexibility path. Data from the US support our hypothesis. Our research highlights that the link between cognitive flexibility and creativity is salient when securely attached people use the cognitive flexibility path because of the strong fit between secure attachment and flexible thinking.