Abstract: The impact of threats on creativity is one of the concerned and controversial topic in the field of psychology. Currently, there are three viewpoints: threats can hinder creativity generally; threats can promote creativity, under some certain conditions; there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between threats and creativity. However, the reasons for the divergence of these three viewpoints and the underlying mechanism are still unclear. This article review them from the perspectives of cognition and emotion and conclude that the divergence comes from differences in threat levels, creativity mechanisms and additional mediator/modulator variables. Therefore, future research can focus on systematically verifying the reasons for the divergence from the perspectives of cognitive and emotional intervention and exploring the cognitive neuroscience and genes mechanisms of the relationship between threat and creativity.

Key words: threat, creativity, cognition, emotion