Abstract
For feminists, a core goal is to promote the interests of women as a group. Across three studies, we examined whether the pursuit of such goals can lead feminists to use more divergent thinking styles. We measured identification with feminists, identification with women, and manipulated the extent to which a divergent thinking task was congruent with the goal of promoting women’s interests. Results showed that—when given the opportunity to promote the interests of women—feminist identification was associated with greater divergent thinking. This effect was observed only in feminists who identified less strongly with women as a group (“distinctive feminists”). We conclude that distinctive feminists draw on divergent thinking to promote the interests of women as a group.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 461-470 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Social Psychological and Personality Science |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 24 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2021 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (AEI/FEDER, UE; grant no. PSI2016-79971-P) and by a Marie-Curie fellowship from the European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, 622331, CREA.TA).
Keywords
- creativity
- divergent thinking
- empowerment
- feminist identification
- goal pursuit
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
