The ACT-ON Ideas Framework: A Contingency Perspective on Creative Self-Regulation

Abstract

Creative action is idiosyncratic. Not only do creators differ in their approaches to creative work, but creative endeavors differ in complexity, scale, and level of difficulty, meaning that the self-regulation strategies people use to manage themselves and their ideas from creative ideation to implementation may differ. More specifically, the work that people devote to creative self-regulation is determined by the demands inherent to certain forms of creative activity and people's capacities to control their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to meet those demands. Yet, current theoretical frameworks of creative self-regulation have not explicitly delineated the role of self-regulatory determinants and contingencies that make it easier or more challenging for people to actualize their ideas. To that end, we present the Actualization Contingencies and Tendencies for Operable New Ideas (ACT-ON Ideas) framework, which outlines the factors that influence the self-regulatory demands imposed by creative work, as well as people's propensities to enact certain self-regulation strategies during idea implementation. We argue that people's self-regulatory activities are influenced by (a) external contingencies such as idea qualities, task demands, and the environment, as well as (b) people's internal tendencies such as their dispositions, metacognitive abilities, self-beliefs, and behavioral inertia from previous efforts in the creative process.