Affect and Creativity at Work

What I read

In this paper, the authors conducted a longitudinal study in industry to understand the relationship between affect and creativity. They concluded that there are significant relationships between positive affect, both before and after a creative event. They then propose a model for thinking about creativity in the context of a business.

To begin, the authors set the context for their work, and then describe the theory behind prior research in the space. They indicate that, while creativity—"coming up with fresh ideas for changing products, services, and processes so as to better achieve the organization’s goals"—has been considered a critical part of a business’ success, little research has been done to understand the nature of affect and creativity in a business context.

The authors define creativity as the “production of novel, useful ideas or problem solutions. It refers to both the process of idea generation or problem solving and the actual idea or solution.” They extensively site Simonton, referencing his views on variation and “selective retention.” He describes that creativity goes on in the mind of the creator, and once an idea has been selected, it is shared with and further selected by other people.

Next, they describe previous theories related to affect and creativity, many of which speak positively of positive affect. For example, Fredrickson “proposed that positive emotions, such as joy and love, broaden a person’s available repertoire of cognitions and actions [leading to] unscripted paths of thought and action.” In addition to theoretical precedent, they describe experimental precedent that has shown evidence that positive emotions can “induce changes in cognitive processing that facilitate creative activity.” They discuss the same theory and experimental approaches to the relationship between negative affect and creativity, discussing previous explorations into mental illness and creativity. They conclude that, while there is more support for a relationship between positive affect and creativity, there has been little research about creativity in a management or organizational context.

Of the research that has been done, most have proposed a linear relationship—that higher affect relates to higher creativity—rather than a curvilinear relationship, where both negative and positive extremes may contribute to higher creativity (or, the opposite may be true.) They consider that “affective ambivalence” may lead to creativity (for example, when “holding opposite or antithetical thoughts in mind simultaneously.”) Other research has shown that lability—changes in mood—may be more important to creativity than a static mode.

They also explore precedent research related to the time-based relationships of affect and creativity, to understand if research has identified connections between creativity before affect or creativity after affect. Incubation—a “process of unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through conscious work at one point in time, resulting in novel and useful ideas at some later point in time”—has been anecdotally tied to creativity; this has also been explored through the distinction between awake and asleep incubation, showing a relationship of sleep and creativity. And, there may be a simultaneous relationship between affect and creativity, where “feeling passionately involved with the work” is directly related to creative events.

The authors then describe their study. Over 200 people, in many industries and companies, were selected to participate in a longitudinal study. The primary data collection method of the study was an end-of-day prompt to first complete a structured questionnaire, and then to “briefly describe on event from today that stands out in your mind as relevant to your target project” and their feelings about the project. Additional data collection included pre, post, and in-experiment meetings, discussions, and questionnaires. Monthly questionnaires prompted participants to rate their teammates on the “'person’s creative contribution to the project during the past month', with creativity defined as 'the production of NOVEL AND USEFUL ideas' (caps in original).”

The authors describe their thorough qualitative and quantitative analysis method, as well as the statistically analyzed results; I will skip this here.

Next, the authors discuss the implications of this work, as well as its place in the context of the previously discussed research. Their first primary insight was that “we found consistent evidence of a positive relationship between positive affect and creativity and no evidence of a negative relationship.” They identify that affect and creativity is likely linear; emotional churn has no relationship on creativity; and being “ambivalent” (experiencing both positive and negative affect) had no relationship with creativity. They also identified that affect can occur before creativity, can be caused by creativity, can occur after creativity without causation, and can occur spontaneously.

The authors then propose a general theory related to affect and creativity in organizations. This model is cyclical, and shows the various linkages between their individual findings and creativity. One unique aspects of the cycle is the surround—that creativity provokes reactions from people, leading to organizational events, leading to affect, leading to cognitive variation, leading to incubation, leading to creativity.

They describe how their model, and the results of the study, can be integrated into existing theories of creativity. The model is general enough that it might be relevant in other disciplines outside of management. And, it might be a “logical extension of evolutionary models of creativity.” They spend time discussing the qualitative results of the research, and how those impact their findings. Of the 11,471 narratives gathered in the study, 364 reported a creative thought; the researchers conclude that people were “simply unaware of the influence of mood on their creative thinking.”

Finally, the authors discuss future research that can emerge from this work. One direction might be to explore other emotions (rather than simply pleasantness), such as joy, love, anger, fear, or sadness. Another might be to explore the other parts of the organization and context of “feedback” on the development of creativity. Incubation could also be further studied, in order to understand the development of a creative idea over time. And, there is room to further explore the organizational and group nature of creativity, affect, and time.

What I learned and what I think

This study was in another level of league than the others I’ve been reading, not necessarily in terms of quality of output or impact of output but certainly in terms of thoroughness, thoughtfulness, and depth of study itself. I can only imagine the amount of funding necessary to pull this off: so many participants, so much time, so much coding and analysis. It’s just a materially different level of effort and consideration than I see from public universities (go Harvard). I’m not sure it’s better, but it’s certainly noticeable.

One takeaway I had from this is that the “U-shape” curve is missing: there was no indication that negative affect has a positive impact on creativity. I believe that in the context of business—when my employees come in all pissed off, they get nothing accomplished—but it’s really different than what, at least in lore, happens in art: the disgruntled artist, unable to stop until they come up with something meaningful. Maybe there’s a specific role of context or autonomy, or maybe the lore is just wrong and overly storybook. Van Gogh’s ear…

I also picked up on the initial description of creativity as our old friend novelty, but a subtle and then overt shift to viewing creativity as problem solving. The researchers used this coding scheme:

“Our coding scheme defined creative thought as any of the following: (1) a discovery, insight, or idea; (2) the act of searching for a discovery, insight, or idea; (3) solving a problem in a non-rote way; or (4) the act of searching for a problem solution in a non-rote way.”

I love this all the way around. A creative thought is absolutely an act of searching; that is creative exploration. If we’re going with problem solving, creativity is absolutely non-rote: that’s method and outcome, not just outcome. “Non-rote” to me is not “unique”, either; it’s non-habitual, or not following rules, or not following policies. It can be unique, or it can just be a personalized process. At least three of the four criteria have little or nothing to do with newness.

Design exploration really is a form of searching, although that sort of implies the “answer” is “findable.” Maybe it’s a search through one’s own ideas, both tacit and explicit, competitive ideas, existing ideas in a system or solution already implemented… I’ve never thought of the relationship between ideation, making things, and “searching.”

I noticed that several of the quotes from participants referenced what I would have qualified as creativity, but I don’t think many of the previous papers I’ve looked at would have viewed that way; for example, “I figured out why something was not working correctly” or “An alternative idea soon came to mind.” It’s almost like we can’t help ourselves equate creativity in industry to problem solving, and that may just fundamentally be a difference between creativity in other contexts. So then it’s about viewing the connections and disconnections between that and the Herb Simon problem solving, and any other form of addressing things that need to be fixed.

I receive a language lesson in reading this one; laden, lability, veridical, coterminious are all new to me (and to Word, apparently). The language didn’t feel gratuitous here, though, like it did in some of the other papers.

I will read more from these researchers. These are tougher to read, but in a good way. I think this type of work is pushing me a little away from “I will judge (negatively) the work”, to “I will think about the work.”