How Emotion Can Boost and Impede Creativity: Sometimes Positive Emotion is a Trap

GLORIA EXCELCISE MUHAMAD, Galang Lufityanto, S. Psi., M. Psi., Ph. D., Psikolog

2019 | Skripsi | S1 PSIKOLOGI

Although many studies have been dedicated to illuminate the effect of emotion on creativity, they only focused on the valence dimension, therefore leaving the understanding rather partial and yet incomplete. This current research was aimed to incorporate the arousal dimension of emotion to investigate more thorough effect of emotion on creativity. Using emotional-induced images taken from a reliable database, we mixed the valence and arousal dimension and then came up with four types of visual stimuli: positive emotion high arousal (PH), positive emotion low arousal (PL), negative emotion high arousal (NH), and negative emotion low arousal (NL). Involving 150 Participants, creativity was measured using a verbal creativity test which focused on the fluency and originality of their ideas. The result indicated that all emotion groups significantly increased fluency scores of creativity, i.e. gap score between post and pre-test, after being induced with emotional images, except for the PL group. Interestingly, only PH and NL group demonstrated significant improvement on the originality scores. This study suggested that creativity can be endorsed by specific interaction between dimensions of emotion such as arousal and valence.

Although many studies have been dedicated to illuminate the effect of emotion on creativity, they only focused on the valence dimension, therefore leaving the understanding rather partial and yet incomplete. This current research was aimed to incorporate the arousal dimension of emotion to investigate more thorough effect of emotion on creativity. Using emotional-induced images taken from a reliable database, we mixed the valence and arousal dimension and then came up with four types of visual stimuli: positive emotion high arousal (PH), positive emotion low arousal (PL), negative emotion high arousal (NH), and negative emotion low arousal (NL). Involving 150 Participants, creativity was measured using a verbal creativity test which focused on the fluency and originality of their ideas. The result indicated that all emotion groups significantly increased fluency scores of creativity, i.e. gap score between post and pre-test, after being induced with emotional images, except for the PL group. Interestingly, only PH and NL group demonstrated significant improvement on the originality scores. This study suggested that creativity can be endorsed by specific interaction between dimensions of emotion such as arousal and valence.

Kata Kunci : arousal, creativity, emotion, fluency, originality