Understanding empathy as a motivator to facilitate the creative process in Human-Computer Interaction

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2022-05
Authors
Park, Hye Jeong
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Lee, Jae Hwa
McKilligan, Seda
Kang, Sunghyun
Baran, Evrim
Sharma, Akshay
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Abstract
Scholars in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) discipline recognize the importance of creativity in generating novel and innovative user-centered products. Thus, studies utilizing various methods have sought to better understand HCI individuals’ creativity with an emphasis on empathy, a key construct that HCI professionals and students must learn when considering prospective users’ needs during the idea generation process. The present study examined empathy as a motivator of creativity. More specifically, the study identified the role of empathy and explored how empathy generates synergy when motivation is associated with creative idea generation in Amabile’s Componential Model of Creativity. The study adapted an explanatory sequential design. To develop an online survey, the Runco Ideational Behavior (RIBS), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Work Preference Inventory (WPI), prosocial motivation, and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were implemented to investigate individual levels of empathy, motivation, creative idea generation, and personality traits. A total of 598 HCI professionals responded through Amazon Mechanical Turks (Amazon MTurk) using the external site Qualtrics. Ultimately, 15 HCI professionals currently involved in industry with titles related to user experience were recruited as interviewees. The semi-structured interview involved eight questions that were asked of participants to garner in-depth insights into the use and role of empathy, motivation, and personality in the early creative process within industrial settings. Before the primary survey and interviews began, pilot studies were performed to ensure measurement consistency and to further develop interview questions. Employing IBM SPSS Statistics 26, a combination of descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, hierarchical regression, and mediation analysis were implemented to examine the relationship between empathy and motivation, as that relationship has the potential to impact creative idea generation. The effect of individual differences on creative idea generation was also investigated. For the interview analysis, a thematic content analysis method was used to determine each interviewee’s perception and use of empathy and motivation during their creative process. Moreover, participants’ personality traits and how those traits impacted the participants’ creativity were identified and used to examine their contribution to individual differences during the creative process. The survey results revealed that intrinsic, extrinsic, and prosocial motivation mediated empathy and that in turn enhanced creative ideation. Interestingly, perspective taking did not directly impact creative idea generation, a finding that contradicted previous studies. However, when intrinsic motivation was integrated, perspective taking positively impacted creative idea generation. The interviews indicated that HCI professionals perceive empathy as essential for understanding the user-centered approach, and they use intrinsic and prosocial motivation together or separately during the early creative process. In terms of individual differences, agreeableness showed conflicting results: in the correlation analysis, agreeableness was negatively related to creative idea generation, but in the thematic content analysis, it was shown to be positively associated. The findings of this investigation were meaningful. The current study confirmed that the role of cognitive and affective empathy promotes individuals’ creative abilities during creative idea generation within the Componential Model of Creativity. In particular, empathy and intrinsic, extrinsic, and prosocial motivation were strongly related; and when synthesized, HCI individuals generated a greater number of creative ideas. Additionally, the findings suggest that empathy and prosocial motivation can extend the Componential Model of Creativity in the HCI setting. Empathy and prosocial motivation strategies should be both introduced in HCI classrooms and present in industrial settings to amplify HCI students’ and practitioners’ creative idea generation ability.
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dissertation
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