Abstract: The effect of rewards on creativity has always been one of the most controversial issues in creativity research concerns. By reviewing the foregoing studies, we concluded that rewards can either facilitate or hinder creativity, which may depend on nature of rewards and the conception of creativity held by the researchers, individual differences and external environments. We also suggested that rewards may influence creativity through motivation, cognition as well as their synthetic functions. Based on the analysis above, we proposed an integrative model which explained the influence of reward on creativity in detail. The theoretical and practical implications of this model were discussed.

Key words: rewards, creativity, individual differences, environmental factors, motivation, cognition