5. Conclusion
The present findings indicate that acute stress may impair creativity via concomitant HPA and SAM activation that modulates cognitive flexibility. This was demonstrated by the enhanced level of cortisol, dopamine and norepinephrine as well as the decrease in cognitive flexibility under stress. Following these results, we conclude that stress-induced arousal may restrict flexible switching and divergent thinking, mediated by distinct neurocognitive mechanisms. To our knowledge, the current research is the first attempt to uncover the potential cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creative processing under acute stress. Future research would benefit from integrating multimodal cross-cutting techniques to form a multi-level model of stress-influenced creativity at the “biochemical-cognitive-behavioral-brain” level and to construct a systematic and comprehensive explanatory framework.