When and how to be creative? neuro-cognitive investigation of creative metacognition.
Creativity, defined as the ability to generate novel and effective ideas, elevates cultural progress and as a basis for innovation is crucial for enhancing economic competitiveness and strengthening society. On personal level, creativity increases well-being, positive affect, flourishing, and plays an essential role in learning. Creative behavior is an agentic decision and it also depends on the conviction about one’s own abilities to manage the creativity challenge and on how much creativity is valued by that person and surroundings. The constellation of beliefs that determine a person’s engagement and performance on creative endeavors called creative self-beliefs. It was proved that these self-beliefs play an intermediary role between creative abilities and creative action behavior So far, of the all components of creative self-beliefs we know the least about creative metacognition, which is defined as a combination of creative self-knowledge (knowing one’s own creative strengths and limitations) and contextual knowledge (knowing when, where, how, and why to be creative). Even though several researchers and theorists pointed out that creative metacognition plays an essential role in the process of creative potential realization, there is still very little research on this topic.Based on available theories and research results, we propose a two-stage research program to extend knowledge about individual differences in creative metacognition (CMC) considering 1) CMC accuracy and 2) CMC regulation facets from a behavioral and neuroscientific perspective. The Maria Skłodowska Fellowship participation will facilitate successful execution of the project, but also target areas, in which I require additional skill development to prepare and position me for a career as an independent researcher, ready to gain habilitation.