In addition to what we know as benevolent creativity, which involves originality and usefulness, creativity also includes malevolent creativity, which involves the application of creative ideas to intentionally harm others. This study aimed to explore the environmental and individual predictors of malevolent creativity. We investigated the relationship among childhood neglect, Dark Triad personality traits and malevolent creativity and examined the mediating role of Dark Triad personality. A large sample of Chinese undergraduate students completed the childhood neglect scale, the 12-item Dirty (...) Dozen and the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that childhood neglect was positively related to individual malevolent creativity, and the Dark Triad partially mediated this relationship. Additionally, gender differences were found, such that childhood neglect had a stronger effect on malevolent creativity through the Dark Triad among males than females. The results were discussed from the perspectives of life history theory and social information processing theory. (shrink)

With the existing research available on negative and malevolent creativity, this paper proposes a more narrowly defined concept: the bi-directional relationship between negative and malevolent creative thinking, which is intended to clarify the way forward for research in the area of negative and malevolent creativity. This paper uses qualitative research to identify and correlate an individual's concept of negative and malevolent creativity and uses a Inductive reasoning methodology to outline a preliminary theory. Following this, the preliminary theory was returned to (...) the primary sources for validation, continuous optimization, and presentation. To better demonstrate the bidirectional linkage mechanism of thinking between the two types, this paper constructed a model to describe the relationships between the variables. This study concludes that negative creative thinking is a kind of native thinking based on personal interests that are developed to emphasize the benefits of an individual's interests, while malevolent creative thinking is a kind of native thinking based on the value-added of personal interests and is deliberately harmful. Both types of thinking share a value orientation, environmental stimulation, and subjective motivation. However, they differ in terms of value goals, ways of thinking, and the scale of the subject. It is concluded from the intrinsic thinking logic of individual thinking as well as the temporal dimension of the individual creative process that value-added and intentions to exploit others are factors that drive the transformation of negative creative thinking into malevolent creative thinking, and personal intention is a vital factor for establishing a linkage between negative and malevolent creative thinking. (shrink)