Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T16:13:16.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - In the Mood for Creativity

from Affective Underpinnings of Creativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

By
Matthijs Baas
Edited by
James C. Kaufman  and
Robert J. Sternberg
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

Mood is one of the most widely studied and least disputed predictors of creativity. However, the existing research on the mood–creativity relationship shows many inconsistent findings. In this chapter, I set out to better understand which mood states help or hinder creativity. Drawing on meta-analyses and recent empirical studies on the mood–creativity link, it becomes clear that people are not more creative when they are relieved, relaxed, sad, or depressed. Instead, it appears that mood states that activate the individual promote creativity, including happiness, anger, and, under the right circumstances, fear. I also discuss the potential mechanisms that explain why mood affects creativity and examine moderators that determine when mood affects creativity. I end this chapter with practical implications and new developments in mood–creativity research.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity , pp. 257 - 272
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akinola, M. & Mendes, W. B. (2008). The dark side of creativity: Biological vulnerability and negative emotions lead to greater artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1677–1686.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ambady, N. & Gray, H. M. (2002). On being sad and mistaken: Mood effects on the accuracy of thin-slice judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 947–961.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ashby, F. G., Isen, A. M., & Turken, A. U. (1999). A neuropsychological theory of positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review, 106, 529–550.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? Psychological Bulletin, 134, 779–806.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2011a). When prevention promotes creativity: The role of mood, regulatory focus and regulatory closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 794–809.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2011b). Creative production by angry people peaks early on, decreases over time, and is relatively unstructured. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1107–1115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2012). Emotions that associate with uncertainty lead to structured thinking. Emotion, 12, 1004–1014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baas, M., Koch, S., Nijstad, B. A, & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2015). Conceiving creativity: Lay people’s true and false beliefs about the realization of creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9, 340–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baas, M., Nevicka, B., & Ten Velden, F. S. (2014). Specific mindfulness skills differentially predict creative performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 1092–1106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baas, M., Nijstad, B. A. N., Boot, N., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2016). Mad genius revisited: Vulnerability to psychopathology, biobehavioral approach-avoidance, and creativity. Psychological Bulletin, 142, 668–692.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Basadur, M., Graen, G. B., & Green, S. G. (1982). Training in creative problem solving: Effects on ideation and problem finding and solving in an industrial research organization. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 30, 41–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bledow, R., Rosing, K., & Frese, M. (2013). A dynamic perspective on affect and creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 432–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boot, N. C., Baas, M., Van Gaal, S., Cools, R., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2017). Dopaminergic modulation of creativity. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 78, 13–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brehm, J. W. & Self, E. A. (1989). The intensity of motivation. Annual Review of Psychology, 40, 109–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broadbent, D. E. (1972). Decision and stress. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Byron, K. & Khazanchi, S. (2011). A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship of state and trait anxiety to performance on figural and verbal creative tasks. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 269–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Byron, K., Khazanchi, S., & Nazarian, D. (2010). The relationship between stressors and creativity: A meta-analysis examining competing theoretical models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 201–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carver, C. S. (2004). Negative affects deriving from the behavioral approach system. Emotion, 4, 3–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carver, C. S. & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: Evidence and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 183–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carver, C. S. & White, T. L. (1994). Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 319–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chermahini, S. A. & Hommel, B. (2010). The (b) link between creativity and dopamine: Spontaneous eye blink rates predict and dissociate divergent and convergent thinking. Cognition, 115, 458–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conner, T. S. & Silvia, P. J. (2015). Creative days: A daily diary study of emotion, personality, and everyday creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9, 463–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, M. A. (2009). Understanding the relationship between mood and creativity: A meta- analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Dreu, C. K. W., Baas, M., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). Hedonic tone and activation in the mood-creativity link: Towards a dual pathway to creativity model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 739–756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Dreu, C. K. W., Nijstad, B. A., & Baas, M. (2011). Behavioral activation links to creativity because of increased cognitive flexibility. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 72–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, X., Tang, Y. Y., Deng, Y., Tang, R., & Posner, M. I. (2015). Mood and personality predict improvement in creativity due to meditation training. Learning and Individual Differences, 37, 217–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreisbach, G. & Goschke, T. (2004). How positive affect modulates cognitive control: Reduced perseveration at the cost of increased distractibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 343–353.Google ScholarPubMed
Elliot, A. J. & Thrash, T. M. (2002). Approach-avoidance motivation in personality: Approach and avoidance temperaments and goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 804–818.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferry, G. (2007). Max Perutz and the secret of life. London: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Fiedler, K. (1988). Emotional mood, cognitive style, and behavior regulation. In Fiedler, K. & Forgas, J. P. (eds.), Affect, cognition, and social behavior (pp. 100–119). Toronto: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Forgeard, M. J. (2013). Perceiving benefits after adversity: The relationship between self- reported posttraumatic growth and creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 7(3), 245–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, R. S. & Förster, J. (2010). Implicit affective cues and attentional tuning: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 875–893.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedman, R. S., Förster, J., & Denzler, M. (2007). Interactive effects of mood and task framing on creative generation. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 141–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frijda, N. H. (1993). Moods, emotion episodes, and emotions. In Lewis, M. & Haviland, J. M. (eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 381–403). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Gasper, K. & Middlewood, B. L. (2014). Approaching novel thoughts: Understanding why elation and boredom promote associative thought more than distress and relaxation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 50–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilet, A. L. & Jallais, C. (2011). Valence, arousal and word associations. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 740–746.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grawitch, M. J., Munz, D. C., & Kramer, T. J. (2003). Effects of member mood states on creative performance in temporary workgroups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, T. R. & Noice, H. (1988). Influence of positive affect upon creative thinking and problem solving in children. Psychological Reports, 63, 895–898.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haager, J. S., Kuhbandner, C., & Pekrun, R. (2016). To be bored or not to be bored: How task‐related boredom influences creative performance. Journal of Creative Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.154CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirt, E. R., Devers, E. E., & McCrea, S. M. (2008). I want to be creative: Exploring the role of hedonic contingency theory in the positive mood–cognitive flexibility link. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 214–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Idson, L. C., Liberman, N., & Higgins, E. T. (2000). Distinguishing gains from non-losses and losses from non-gains: A regulatory focus perspective on hedonic intensity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 252–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isen, A. M. (2000). Positive affect and decision making. In Lewis, M. & Haviland-Jones, J. M. (eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd edn, pp. 417–435). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, G. (2003). Expanding the mood–creativity equation. Creativity Research Journal, 15, 131–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klep, A., Wisse, B., & Van der Flier, H. (2011). Interactive affective sharing versus non‐interactive affective sharing in work groups: Comparative effects of group affect on work group performance and dynamics. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(3), 312–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leung, A. K. Y., Liou, S., Qiu, L., Kwan, L. Y. Y., Chiu, C. Y., & Yong, J. C. (2014). The role of instrumental emotion regulation in the emotions–creativity link: How worries render individuals with high neuroticism more creative. Emotion, 14, 846–856.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liu, D., Jiang, K., Shalley, C. E., Keem, S., & Zhou, J. (2016). Motivational mechanisms of employee creativity: A meta-analytic examination and theoretical extension of the creativity literature. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 236–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803–855.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Madrid, H. P., Patterson, M. G., Birdi, K. S., Leiva, P. I., & Kausel, E. E. (2014). The role of weekly high‐activated positive mood, context, and personality in innovative work behavior: A multilevel and interactional model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35, 234–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madrid, H. P., Totterdell, P., Niven, K., & Barros, E. (2016). Leader affective presence and innovation in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), 673–686.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, L. L. & Clore, G. L. (2001). Theories of mood and cognition: A user’s guidebook. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27, 267–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Middlewood, B. L., Gallegos, J., & Gasper, K. (2016). Embracing the unusual: Feeling tired and happy is associated with greater acceptance of atypical ideas. Creativity Research Journal, 28(3), 310–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nijstad, B. A., De Dreu, C. K. W., Rietzschel, E. F., & Baas, M. (2010). The dual-pathway to creativity model: Creative ideation as a function of flexibility and persistence. European Review of Social Psychology, 21, 34–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppezzo, M. & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1142–1152.Google ScholarPubMed
Parke, M. R., Seo, M. G., & Sherf, E. N. (2015). Regulating and facilitating: The role of emotional intelligence in maintaining and using positive affect for creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 917–934.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perry-Smith, J. E. & Mannucci, P. V. (2017). From creativity to innovation: The social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey. Academy of Management Review, 42(1), 53–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, J., Russell, J. A., & Peterson, B. S. (2005). The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 715–734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rego, A., Sousa, F., Marques, C., & e Cunha, M. P. (2014). Hope and positive affect mediating the authentic leadership and creativity relationship. Journal of Business Research, 67, 200–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, T. W. (1984). Cortical noradrenaline, attention and arousal. Psychological Medicine, 14, 13–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roseman, I. J., Wiest, C., & Swartz, T. S. (1994). Phenomenology, behaviors, and goals differentiate discrete emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 206–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roskes, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2012). Necessity is the mother of invention: Avoidance motivation stimulates creativity through cognitive effort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 242–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwarz, N. & Clore, G. L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In Higgins, E. T. & Kruglanski, A. (eds.), Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles (pp. 433–465). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Shin, Y. (2014). Positive group affect and team creativity: Mediation of team reflexivity and promotion focus. Small Group Research, 45(3), 337–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silvia, P. J., Beaty, R. E., Nusbaum, E. C., Eddington, K. M., Levin-Aspenson, H., & Kwapil, T. R. (2014). Everyday creativity in daily life: An experience-sampling study of “little c” creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8, 183–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sio, U. N. & Ormerod, T. C. (2009). Does incubation enhance problem solving? A meta- analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 94–120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
To, M. L., Fisher, C. D., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2015). Unleashing angst: Negative mood, learning goal orientation, psychological empowerment and creative behaviour. Human Relations, 68, 1601–1622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
To, M. L., Fisher, C. D., Ashkanasy, N. M., & Rowe, P. A. (2012). Within-person relationships between mood and creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 599–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
To, M. L., Herman, H. M., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2015). A multilevel model of transformational leadership, affect, and creative process behavior in work teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(4), 543–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, W. C., Chi, N. W., Grandey, A. A., & Fung, S. C. (2012). Positive group affective tone and team creativity: Negative group affective tone and team trust as boundary conditions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(5), 638–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Kleef, G. A., Anastasopoulou, C., & Nijstad, B. A. (2010). Can expressions of anger enhance creativity? A test of the emotions as social information (EASI) model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(6), 1042–1048.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visser, V. A., van Knippenberg, D., van Kleef, G. A., & Wisse, B. (2013). How leader displays of happiness and sadness influence follower performance: Emotional contagion and creative versus analytical performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 172–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, J. S. & Hung, H. V. (2015). Emotions as constraining and facilitating factors for creativity: Companionate love and anger. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24, 217–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, J. (2008). Promoting creativity through feedback. In Zhou, J. & Shalley, C. E. (eds.). Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 125–146). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×