The Serial Order Effect of Creative Confidence: How Creative Performance and Confidence Unfold

The serial order effect shows that ideas become more creative over time. But is this change in ideas’ originality related to people’s self-perception? In two preregistered studies applying a micro-longitudinal approach (N1 = 730; N2 = 664), we examined the temporal trajectories of creative performance and self-perception along with their dynamic within-person associations. Participants completed the Alternative Uses Task alongside repeated assessments of creative self-perception: contextualized creative confidence and task-specific self-evaluation. Results showed a consistent increase in creative performance, paralleled by increases in task self-evaluation. Changes in creative confidence were less consistent: modest growth was observed in Study 1, but failed to replicate in Study 2. Additionally, in Study 1, creative metacognitive accuracy moderated the within-person links between changes in performance and confidence: higher accuracy strengthened the positive association between creative performance and confidence, whereas low accuracy was associated with a reversed relationship. In Study 2, random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling revealed significant contemporaneous effects, suggesting that individuals update their self-perceptions in a moment-to-moment manner following idea generation. Together, these findings emphasize the complexities behind creative self-perception formation. We discuss the theoretical and practical consequences of those findings.