"Overall, the more positive a person's mood on a given day, the more creative thinking he did that day." There was even a carryover effect for the next two days after.
Want to be more creative? Get happy.
Our diary study revealed a definitive connection between positive emotion and creativity. We looked at specific emotions as well as overall mood (the aggregate of a person's positive and negative emotions during the day). Overall, the more positive a person's mood on a given day, the more creative thinking he did that day. Across all study participants, there was a 50 percent increase in the odds of having a creative idea on days when people reported positive moods, compared with days when they reported negative moods.
We even found a surprising carryover effect showing that creativity follows from positive emotion.
The more positive a person's mood on a given day, the more creative thinking he did the next day-and, to some extent, the day after that-even taking into account his moods on those later days.
This may be due to what psychologists call an incubation effect. Pleasant moods stimulate greater breadth in thinking-greater cognitive variation-which can linger and even build over a day or more. Such cognitive variation can lead to new insights at work.
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