心情對了，創意就來了──情緒對發散性思考與頓悟問題解決的不同影響

Right Moods, Right Creativities: Differential Effects of Emotional States on Divergent Thinking and Insight Problem Solving

去探討情緒與創造力間關係的研究未能獲致一致或完整的結論，有些研究發現僅正向情緒能促進創造力、另一些研究發現負向情緒的促進效果，也有研究顯示正、負向情緒皆有助於創造力表現。然而，過去研究並未區分不同程度的情緒操弄以及不同類型的創造力作業。依據成就動機理論，最適激動程度會依作業性質而有所不同；研究也顯示開放式的發散性思考與封閉式的頓悟問題解決涉及不同的歷程。本研究中將200 位參與者隨機分派至不同程度的情緒影片操弄組中（高度正向、中度正向、中性、中度負向、高度負向），分別進行發散性思考測驗或頓悟問題解決作業。結果顯示，不同的情緒操弄會對兩類創造力作業造成不同影響：中度的正向情緒最有利於頓悟問題的解決；而發散性思考表現則與激動程度成正相關，亦即不論正、負價性，越高度的情緒越能增進其表現。此研究結果有助於澄清情緒與創造力的關係，並可作為進一步探討情緒影響創造力的機制或創造力提升方法研究的基礎。

Previous studies investigating the relationships between emotional state and creativity reveal inconsistent and inconclusive results. Some found that positive emotional state enhanced creativity performance; some supported the facilitative effect of negative emotions; while others showed that positive and negative emotional states can both improve creativity. These inconsistencies might be attributed to the problems that the lack of differentiation between levels of emotional states and no distinction is made between different types of creativity tasks in the previous studies. According to achievement motivation theory, optimal arousal level is a U-shaped function of the nature of performance task, and different tasks require different levels of arousal for optimal performance. Past research also indicated that different creativity tasks, says, open-ended divergent thinking and closed-ended insight problem solving, involved distinct processes. In the present study, 200 participants were randomly assigned to five emotional manipulation conditions – high degree of positive emotion, medium degree of positive emotion, neutral, medium degree of negative emotion, and high degree of negative emotion. Half of the participants in each condition performed divergent thinking test, while the other half performed insight problem-solving task. The Results showed that different emotional states have different effects on the two creativity measures. While medium positive emotional state can mostly improve insight problem solving, divergent thinking performance is positively related to the degree of arousal-regardless of positive or negative valence, – the higher the emotional arousal, the more enhanced the performance. These Results help to clarify the relationships between emotion and creativity. Results also establish the basis to explore the mechanism by which emotions influence creativity and the means by which creativity can be enhanced.