The Relationship between Parenting Styles and Overcoming Mental Fixation in Creative Idea Generation

Both parental support and control are important factors for development. Parental support refers to being sensitive and responsive to a child’s needs, while control refers to setting rules, expectations, and boundaries for behavior. The present study examined the relationship between one’s caregivers parenting style and overcoming mental fixation in an idea generation task. Participants completed a series of tasks involving the generation of labels for simple line drawings. Half of the drawings were accompanied by example labels designed to induce mental fixation and impede idea generation, and half were not. Participants later provided retrospective self-reports of their caregivers parenting styles based on parental control and support. Participants also completed a cognitive flexibility questionnaire. It was hypothesized that those with more authoritarian-like parenting styles (low-support and high-control) would have fewer ideas and be more mentally fixated by the labels, while those with more authoritative and permissive-like parenting styles (i.e., high support) would generate more ideas, and be less mentally fixated by the labels. The results revealed that the low fixation condition resulted in fewer ideas than the high fixation condition, replicating prior work. Additionally, higher parental support was associated with less mental fixation in the idea generation tasks, and participants that had higher parental support also demonstrated higher cognitive flexibility. The findings suggest that supportive parenting can confer a cognitive style that helps promote thinking about problems in flexible ways.