Can Sitting Postures Influence the Creative Mind? Positive Effect of Contractive Posture on Convergent-Integrative Thinking

Embodied creativity research has begun to demonstrate that postures may boost creative performance depending on whether the creativity task requires either divergent or convergent thinking processes. Although a few studies have demonstrated that being in an expansive posture can benefit creative performance in a divergent-exploratory thinking task, empirical evidence is lacking on the positive effects of a contractive posture on creative performance in a convergent-integrative thinking task. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that sitting in a contractive posture requiring arm flexion to perform a convergent-integrative thinking task would lead to better creative performance than sitting in an expansive posture requiring arm extension. The results confirmed this hypothesis and suggest that creativity may be influenced by participants’ sitting postures during a task. The findings provided new empirical evidence for embodied creativity based on the impact of body postures on creative thinking.