A Time for Creativity Too? How Past‐Versus Future‐Oriented Thinking Facilitates Creativity

Future‐oriented thinking appears conducive to fostering creativity. However, various unreconciled theoretical accounts have been proposed, and whether past‐oriented thinking facilitates creativity has been under‐explored. By leveraging differing expectations associated with past‐oriented thinking, this paper compares the (1) creativity‐facilitating schemas, (2) construal level theory, and (3) conceptual combination hypotheses of how time‐oriented thought relates to creativity. This research conducted two experiments simultaneously investigating past‐, present‐, and future‐oriented thought (Study 1, N = 258) and inducing the juxtaposition of past and present time frames (Study 2, N = 205). Results replicated and supported the creativity‐facilitating schema hypothesis. Furthermore, the current research revealed an interesting possibility that the schema and construal level explanations operate antagonistically to create a suppression effect in the link between past‐oriented thinking and creativity. This research provides insights into how time‐oriented thought impacts creativity and calls attention to some nuanced directions that future research could address.