Emotions and Creativity

The Emotions That Make Us More Creative

Scott Barry Kaufman | August 12, 2015

Artists and scientists throughout history have remarked on the bliss that accompanies a sudden creative insight. Einstein described his realization of the general theory of relativity as the happiest moment of his life. More poetically, Virginia Woolf once observed, “Odd how the creative power brings the whole universe at once to order.”
But what about before such moments of creative insight? What emotions actually fuel creativity?

Source: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/left-right-brain-image-illustrates-use-hemispheres-emotions-intuitions-creativity-colorful-vision-logic-reason-44193283.jpg 

<more at https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creative; related links: http://scp-knowledge.org/2015/03/creativity-and-emotional-intelligence/ (Creativity and Emotional Intelligence. March 25, 2015) and http://roundtable.nceas.ucsb.edu/2015/06/25/emotions-in-scientific-work-and-scientific-creativity/ (July 1: Emotions in Scientific Work and Scientific Creativity. June 25, 2015); further: http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/22/4/301.short (Does Negative Affect Always Narrow and Positive Affect Always Broaden the Mind? Considering the Influence of Motivational Intensity on Cognitive Scope. Eddit Harmon-Jones, Philip A. Gable, and Tom F. Price. SAGE Open June 19, 2015 5: 2158244015592679. [Abstract: Research over the last 5 decades has suggested that negative affective states narrow cognitive scope, whereas positive affective states broaden cognitive scope. An examination of this past research, however, reveals that only negative affects of high motivational intensity (e.g., fear, stress) and positive affects of low motivational intensity (e.g., gratitude, amusement) may have been examined. Consequently, over the last 5 years, research has examined positive and negative affects that are low (e.g., sadness) versus high (e.g., desire) in motivational intensity. This research has found that affects of low motivational intensity broaden cognitive scope whereas affects of high motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope, regardless of the positivity or negativity of the affective state.]>