Hedonic tone and activation level in the mood-creativity link: toward a dual pathway to creativity model.

By C. D. De Dreu, Matthijs Baas, B. Nijstad. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008

1,017 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To understand when and why mood states influence creativity, the authors developed and tested a dual pathway to creativity model; creative fluency (number of ideas or insights) and originality (novelty) are functions of cognitive flexibility, persistence, or some combination thereof. Invoking work on arousal, psychophysiological processes, and working memory capacity, the authors argue that activating moods (e.g., angry, fearful, happy, elated) lead to more creative fluency and originality than do deactivating moods (e.g., sad, depressed, relaxed, serene). Furthermore, activating moods influence creative fluency and originality because of enhanced cognitive flexibility when tone is positive and because of enhanced persistence when tone is negative. Four studies with different mood manipulations and operationalizations of creativity (e.g., brainstorming, category inclusion tasks, gestalt completion tests) support the model.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6b270ff983f85435a18e10850f91c3103ed7eb9d

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Citations in the corpus

Building a Sustainable Model of Human Energy in Organizations: Exploring the Critical Role of Resources (2012, background): “…rather than perceived passion, positively predicts investors’ decision to fund a pitched ventureOrganizational Field study: investors De Dreu et al. (2008) Lab experiments Undergraduates Activating moods (e.g. excitement, enthusiasm) are more likely to increase creativity than…”
Work engagement and workaholism: comparing the self-employed and salaried employees (2010, background): “This lines up with theoretical insights and research on creativity showing that there are two pathways to creativity and innovativeness, namely through positive affect (work engagement), but also through persistence (De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008 ).”
Motivating creativity: The effects of sequential and simultaneous learning and performance achievement goals on product novelty and usefulness (2015, background): “Cognitive flexibility is manifested as solutions that belong to different categories or that combine knowledge or skills from diverse and remote domains (De Dreu et al., 2008).”
Exploring the Link Between Mind Wandering, Mindfulness, and Creativity: A Multidimensional Approach (2018, positive): “…mood states (such as anger, fear, or happiness) can affect creative performance: although activating negative emotions enhances originality through enhanced perseverance, activating positive emotions enhances originality through enhanced cognitive flexibility (De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008).”
A Dynamic Perspective on Affect and Creativity (2013, background): “In experimental studies, De Dreu et al. (2008) found that the induction of negative affect increased the number of new ideas participants generated, because participants showed higher persistence at the task.”
How Dual-Identity Processes Foster Creativity (2014, background): “This type of skill is central to creativity (De Dreu et al., 2008; Nijstad et al., 2010; Nijstad, 2002).”
Examining the inverted U-shaped relationship between workload and innovative work behavior: The role of work engagement and mindfulness (2020, background): “…cognitive flexibility is an important precursor of creativity and innovation because it allows people to build new associations of ideas (De Dreu et al., 2008) as well as to consider and use multiple plans and pathways to translate new conceptions into usable innovations (Hunter et al.,…”
The Joint Moderating Effects of Activated Negative Moods and Group Voice Climate on the Relationship between Power Distance Orientation and Employee Voice Behavior (2017, methodology): “According to the dualpathway model proposed by De Dreu, Baas, and Nijstad (2008), negative moods can signal to individuals that the present situation is problematic and unsatisfactory, thus playing a cognitive role in liberating these individuals from an ingrained belief and prompting them to…”
Beyond productivity loss in brainstorming groups: The evolution of a question (2010, methodology): “192 Wolfgang Stroebe et al. De Dreu et al. (2008a) applied these ideas to a topic within the social cognition literature: the effects of mood states on creative performance.”
Deepening our understanding of creativity in the workplace: A review of different approaches to creativity research. (2011, background): “Because positive, activating moods may facilitate cognitive flexibility and negative, activating moods may boost perseverance (De Dreu et al., 2008) and because both cognitive flexibility and perseverance are needed in coming up with creative ideas in the workplace, it is important for research to…”