Examining the Influence of Mood on the Bright Side and the Dark Side of Creativity

The current exploratory study was designed to examine whether an expert-generated rating of the creativity of a product and of its darkness-brightness would both be influenced by the mood of the participants who had created that product. Positive and negative moods of the participants were induced by watching an emotional video, followed by appropriate instrumental music. Our participants were students of art and architecture, and they were asked to produce short texts and drawings while being in a specific mood. Their products tend to be subsequently rated by judges as being more bright and as being more creative when they had been generated while in a positive mood, and to be rated as being less bright and as being less creative when they had been generated in a negative mood. We also found an effect for the task, the drawings being rated as being more bright than the texts. In addition, those studying architecture generated more brightly rated products. Both positive and negative moods may result in creative products—and these will differ on a dark–bright rating scale.