Abstract:

Trust and creativity are focal topics of psychological study. In recent years, researchers in psychology, pedagogy and management have developed a series of theoretical and empirical studies about how trust affects creativity in group settings. There are three hypotheses on the whole: activation, inhibition and the inverted U model. The activation hypothesis means that trust can promote creativity generally. The inhibition hypothesis shows that under certain conditions, trust will hamper creativity. The inverted U model means that with the effects of conflict and other variables, trust may create a “sweet spot effect” for creativity. The three hypotheses all can be supported by theory and empirical analysis, but there still appears to be some problems. In the future the research should be developed from the angle of selecting the measurement methods properly, clarifying the influence of trust on creativity and deepening understandings of the mechanism of how trust influences creativity.

Key words: trust, creativity, group creativity, innovation