Comparing Creative Role Identity Coaching and Creative Thinking Coaching for Developing Creativity: A Mixed-Methods Intervention Study

Creative role identity (CRI) may enable individuals to realize their creative potential, yet how it can be cultivated and how it contributes to creativity development remain underexplored. This mixed-methods study used a randomised controlled trial and interpretative phenomenological analysis to develop Creative Role Identity Coaching (CRIC) and evaluate its effectiveness in enhancing creative performance compared with Creative Thinking Coaching (CTC). A total of 109 participants were randomly assigned to CRIC, CTC, an active control group, or a blank control group, of whom 91 were included in the final analyses (21, 18, 21, and 31 participants, respectively). CRI, creative performance, intrinsic creative motivation, basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, and perceived environmental support for creativity were measured at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and one-month follow-up. Quantitative results showed that both CRIC and CTC participants experienced increases in CRI and self-reported creative performance after the intervention. However, neither coaching group showed significant within-group improvements on the task-based creative performance. CRIC showed increases in intrinsic creative motivation, autonomy and competence need satisfaction, and perceived environmental support and resources for creativity. CTC showed changes in competence need satisfaction and relatedness need frustration. Qualitative findings elaborated these patterns by showing that CRIC participants reported deeper understanding of creative roles and better need-crafting strategies, which were consistent with the observed increase in perceived environmental support. These findings highlight the potential role of CRI in creativity development and support identity-based coaching as a practical approach to fostering creativity.