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Abstract This study examines the possibility that the relative salience of the controlling and informational aspects of competition determines its impact on creative performance, as suggested by cognitive evaluation theory. The salience of these aspects was manipulated by varying competitor presence and visibility. Three components of creative performance were measured: fluency, flexibility, and overall creativity. Results provided mixed support for the importance of distinguishing between the informational and controlling aspects of competition. Consistent with predictions, scores on the creativity measures were higher in two conditions when the informational aspect of competition should be high (i.e., when individuals were in competition with others present but not visible and when individuals were in competition with absent others and were visible to noncompetitive others) than in a condition when the controlling aspect was expected to be high (i.e., when individuals were in competition with present others and visible to them) and in no competition conditions. However, other findings failed to provide support for the importance of the informational/controlling distinction (e.g., individuals who competed with absent others and were not visible to noncompetitive others produced work low in creativity). The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.
Shalley et al. (Wed,) studied this question.