Positive Mood Allows Human Brain to Think More Creatively

[HuckleB]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101215113253.htm

"...

"Generally, positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking," says Ruby Nadler, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario. She and colleagues Rahel Rabi and John Paul Minda carried out a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For this study, Nadler and her colleagues looked at a particular kind of learning that is improved by creative thinking.

Students who took part in the study were put into different moods and then given a category learning task to do (they learned to classify sets of pictures with visually complex patterns). The researchers manipulated mood with help from music clips and video clips; first, they tried several out to find out what made people happiest and saddest. The happiest music was a peppy Mozart piece, and the happiest video was of a laughing baby. The researchers then used these in the experiment, along with sad music and video (a piece of music from Schindler's List and a news report about an earthquake) and a piece of music and a video that didn't affect mood. After listening to the music and watching the video, people had to try to learn to recognize a pattern.

Happy volunteers were better at learning a rule to classify the patterns than sad or neutral volunteers. "If you have a project where you want to think innovatively, or you have a problem to carefully consider, being in a positive mood can help you to do that," Nadler says. And music is an easy way to get into a good mood. Everyone has a different type of music that works for them -- don't feel like you have to switch to Mozart, she says.

Nadler also thinks this may be a reason why people like to watch funny videos at work. "I think people are unconsciously trying to put themselves in a positive mood" -- so that apparent time-wasting may actually be good news for employers."


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I don't buy the bit about humorous videos at work, but it's some interesting research, at any rate.

:hi:

[xiamiam]

1. i need to get off du if i want to have a positive thought today..just too depressing ..nt

[HuckleB]

2. That does seem to be the case much of the time.

:hi:

[HuckleB]

3. Who knew this was controversial enough to get an unrec?

The world is a strange place, indeed.

But I think I need a good laugh: :rofl:

[emilyg]

23. I'll rec.

[HuckleB]

24. Thanks!

Oddly, this is a bit more controversial than I would have ever imagined.

[Drale]

4. Goth Kids would probably disagree

[lame54]

5. explain the blues

[HuckleB]

8. Here's a refresher:

http://www.allmusic.com/explore/essay/beginners-guide-and-history--how-to-listen-to-the-blues-t583

"The blues was peculiar, as music born of despair, which had the effect of making people happy."

In other words, the existence of the blues actually supports this research.

[lame54]

9. but the depressed state is what led to the creation

[BrklynLiberal]

11. Exactly...which is the point of my "suffering genius" post below.

[HuckleB]

14. It's not that simple.

For starters, depressed states are not monolithic. They ebb and flow. The creation may have occurred during a phase where the unhappiness was diminished, but the memory remained. Certainly, most of the artists I know aren't writing songs when they're depressed. They're not doing much of anything when they're depressed.

[Yavin4]

6. Now You Know Why Jazz Musicians Smoke Pot

Nothing puts you in a better mood than pot.

[demodonkey]

7. Absolutely!

Being under constant stress, such as being hounded by medical predators for hospital bills one should not owe, pretty much squelches any and every creative thought in one's head. It's hard enough just to get through the day.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Kind of counterintuitive considering all the "suffering genius" stories that have been

told throughout history....Mozart being among them...

[HuckleB]

12. Anecdotes are nice.

However, they come before pilot studies in terms of research and actual discovery.

[lame54]

15. yet you don't buy the video at work part of the study

[HuckleB]

17. Amazing, isn't it?

Now why wouldn't I buy the interview anecdote offered by the researcher.

:toast:

[lame54]

21. there is no anecdote...

they are his beliefs after conducting the study

[HuckleB]

22. It's an anecdote he added while discussing the study.

Nothing more, nothing less. It's pure, anecdotal speculation.

[lame54]

25. An anecdote is an amusing story about something that actually happened...

what he said was a general belief he formed through collecting his evidence

[HuckleB]

26. What he offered was an anecdote of extrapolation from something that actually happens.

The study does not back up this anecdote, as the anecdote of watching videos at work was not part of the study, which is why I'm not buying it.

[lame54]

27. we can't even agree on the definition of anecdote

[HuckleB]

29. If you say so...

:evilgrin:

[BrklynLiberal]

16. But history is filled with actual stories of geniuses...Mozart, Beethoven,

F Scott Fitzgerald, almost any of the well-known Blues and/or Jazz musicians, Picasso, even Leonardo da Vinci Michaelangelo faced persecution and had troubled lives.....It is a long list. Their lives were VERY troubled, and yet they are acknowledged as creative geniuses.

[HuckleB]

18. That's some people's version of conventional wisdom.

What is often ignored is that many of those artists had bipolar disorder, and their creativity occurred during states of hypo-mania and mania.

Again, anecdotes serve as a place for pilot studies to start, and they offer great discussion, but they don't serve much more than that, if we're truly to understand the human condition.

[Edweird]

13. Low points in my life emotionally are when I was most creative (and successful) musically.

Making music released endorphins that gave me pleasure, but that did not happen until AFTER the music was made - driven by anger. I know it's anecdotal, but it is what it is.

I will say that my problem solving abilities improve when I pull myself out of the "I'm fucked" mindset. So, I see both sides of the coin.

[xiamiam]

20. I quit singing for many years..was so depressed a few years ago over my financial life

falling apart that I decided to sing again..nothing else to do..so i dragged myself out to do it in the beginning....saved my life

[Edweird]

28. Best therapy in the world.

It's also the the only situation that I am aware of where you can have a complete emotional breakdown (in public) and get laid because of it...

[xiamiam]

30. lol..nt

[lame54]

19. Neil Young was not very happy when he wrote Ohio

[Forkboy]

31. I dunno, I get pretty creative when I'm depressed.

Not in any good way, mind you....

[LiberalEsto]

32. My husband's company does the opposite

They try to make the workers as miserable as possible.

I suppose making workers miserable makes the executives happy so they can do creative accounting and award themselves fat bonuses.

[HuckleB]

33. I suspect a lot of companies do the same these days.

:(