Understanding the relationship between mood and creativity: A meta-analysis

A meta-analysis of 62 experimental and 10 non-experimental studies was conducted to evaluate the positive-mood-enhances-creativity generalization. While the results demonstrate that positive mood enhances creativity, the strength of that effect is contingent upon the comparative or referent mood state (i.e., neutral or negative mood) as well as the type of creative task. Further, the pattern of effect sizes supports a curvilinear relationship between affective intensity and creative performance. In general, a contextual perspective of mood–creativity relations is supported.     

Contingent reliance on the affect heuristic as a function of regulatory focus

Results from four studies show that the reliance on affect as a heuristic of judgment and decision making is more pronounced under a promotion focus than under a prevention focus. Two different manifestations of this phenomenon were observed. Studies 1–3 show that different types of affective inputs are weighted more heavily under promotion than under prevention in person-impression formation, product evaluations, and social recommendations. Study 4 additionally shows that valuations performed under promotion are more scope-insensitive—a characteristic of affect-based valuations—than valuations performed under prevention. The greater reliance on affect as a heuristic under promotion seems to arise because promotion-focused individuals tend to find affective inputs more diagnostic, not because promotion increases the reliance on peripheral information per se.     

P-technique factor analyses of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL)

The Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) has been found to have five first-order factors representing Anxiety, Depression, Hostility, Positive Affect, and Sensation Seeking and two second-order factors representing Positive Affect and Sensation Seeking (PASS) and Dysphoria. The present study examines whether these first- and second-order conceptions of affect (based on R-technique factor analysis) can also account for patterns of intraindividual variability in affect (based on P-technique factor analysis) in eight elderly women. Although the hypothesized five-factor model of affect was not testable in all of the present P-technique datasets, the results were consistent with this interindividual model of affect. Moreover, evidence of second-order (PASS and Dysphoria) and third-order (generalized distress) factors was found in one data set. Sufficient convergence in findings between the present P-technique research and prior R-technique research suggests that the MAACL is robust in describing both inter- and intraindividual components of affect in elderly women.This paper is based on the doctoral research of the first author and was partially supported by the National Institute of Aging Grant T32 AC 00048-12 to The Pennsylvania State University and a Grant-in-Aid of Research from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. The authors wish to thank John R. Nesselroade for his helpful comments on an early draft of this paper.     

Discriminant validity of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List - revised

Four groups of patients (depressives, schizophrenics, substance dependents and abusers), a miscellaneous group of other patients, and a group of matched normals from a general population sample were compared on the scales of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List - Revised (MAACL-R). All scales showed highly significant differentiation among the groups. An index consisting of Depression minus Positive Affect scales was particularly effective in discriminating between depressive and other groups. A discriminant function analysis showed that the depressive could be distinguished from other patient groups and normals with an accuracy of 72% correct. The normals could be distinguished from all of the patient groups with a 60% accuracy, and 87% if the substance abuser group is ignored. The discriminant validity among the nondepressive patient groups was not nearly as good.     

Associations between physical activity and sedentary time profiles transitions and changes in well-being in youth: The UP&DOWN longitudinal study

ObjectivesThe current study aimed at analyzing the associations between latent transitions based on sedentary time and physical activity levels and changes in Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), positive affect, and negative affect over two years in children and adolescents.DesignLongitudinal design.MethodsParticipants were 1099 children and adolescents (544 girls) aged 8–18 years old (11.72 ± 2.39 years). Sedentary and physical activity levels were assessed by accelerometry. Well-being was approached through self-reported HRQoL, positive affect, and negative affect. Latent profile and latent transition analysis were developed at baseline and 2-year follow-up. Furthermore, we analyzed the cross-sectional relationship between lifestyle profiles and well-being, as well as the associations between profiles transitions and changes in well-being indicators.ResultsFour profiles were identified at both time-points, respectively: highly sedentary (7.7% and 8.3%), sedentary (34.4% and 35.9%), active (46.3% and 44.3%), and highly active (11.6% and 11.5%). Participants belonging to the highly active profiles showed better HRQL (p < 0.05 at both timepoints) than sedentary participants, and better positive affect (p < 0.05 at follow-up) than those in sedentary and active profiles. Lifestyle profiles were unstable to moderate stable, where sedentary and active profiles were the most stable patter (63.7% and 61.9%, respectively), and highly sedentary and highly active were the least (34.1% and 38.3%, respectively). Changing from an active to a sedentary profile was associated with a significantly greater decrease on the positive affect than keeping on active or changed from a sedentary to an active profile, whereas changing to an active profile attenuated the decrease in HRQoL.ConclusionsThis study identified lifestyle profiles transitions among young population, and demonstrates the importance of these behaviors patterns on well-being indicators. These findings suggest the development of practical interventions aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles (i.e., increasing PA and reducing ST) in those youth with sedentary profiles, which will cause an increase on feelings of well-being.     

Situational moral adjustment and the happy victimizer

In this study we examine the possibility that the happy victimizer phenomenon (HVP), which is generally thought to be restricted to a specific period in middle childhood, also appears among adults. In contrast to other studies that explain the HVP as a lack of moral motivation or an insufficiently developed moral self, we propose to explain HVP in terms of a specific moral stage, i.e., a specific kind of moral reasoning. In particular we identify HV-typical moral reasoning with a sub-form of Kohlberg Stage 2. Adult usage of this moral stage is then explained in terms of situation-specificity. We also try to elaborate the idea of situational adjustment and to reveal the processes of activation and usage of previously acquired moral stage principles. Our empirical study shows that adults use HV-typical principles in specific situations.     

Disinformation as the weaponization of cruel optimism: A critical intervention in misinformation studies

Over the past five years there has been an explosion of mis- and disinformation, with negative social and political impacts felt around the globe. The spread of misinformation has also generated huge scholarly interest but, unfortunately, critical theory has not played a strong role in driving or organizing this research. This paper argues that scholars of emotion and affect should play a stronger role within misinformation studies, providing theoretical frameworks that help to highlight the structural and social aspects of misinformation, to integrate work across disciplines, and to guard against overly techno-solutionist interventions in misinformation. The paper makes this argument by reviewing core areas of study within misinformation studies and placing current research into conversation with Lauren Berlant's concept of cruel optimism. It demonstrates that all aspects of misinformation – from the structural changes that engender it to the disinformation campaigns that weaponize it – are undergirded by powerful affective tools. Unless solutions to misinformation account for these affective geographies, they risk failing or even making the political impact of misinformation worse.     

Miracle boats and other wonders: Locating affect in the narratives of recovery and removal of Japanese post-disaster debris

This paper investigates how affective space is located and constructed in post-disaster places. In elaborating this concept, we observe the media narratives developed around the debris created by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region of Japan. The tsunami waves washed away over 20 million tons of debris, some of which was retrieved in foreign countries and brought back to Japan to be memorialized. We contend that the media narratives on the journey back home of these debris items represents a valuable example to assess how affect emerges and is localized in space. We do so by drawing on geographical theories of space and affect, as we analyse how media narratives follow three broadly defined movements: (i) the displacement of the object, its disappearance from home on March 11, 2011; (ii) the discovery of the object years after, on the other side of the Pacific; (iii) the return home for the purpose of memorialization.     

Letting the brush lead: Mark Cousins,film-maker of the floating world

A hill of salt in the Belfast docklands shimmers like an iceberg at sea. A laminated photograph of Sergei Eisenstein drifts in front of a camera as it moves amongst the streets of Mexico City. A grey mist hovers across Stockholm, obscuring the city behind it. These three images are from a sequence of essay films directed by Mark Cousins. In this paper, I discuss the work of Cousins in terms of its floating aesthetics and mobile methodologies. Throughout his films, Cousins's camera drifts through urban spaces, tracing the images and sounds of cityscapes that typically escape us. The films are attentive to the colours infused and refracted through their urban environments, prompting an understanding of cities as studies in fleeting colour, light and luminosity. I engage with Japanese aesthetic theories in order to draw out resonances between the historical art of urbanising Japan and the city scenes of Cousins's films. This paper offers a reflection on the capacity of Cousins's films to evoke an understanding of cities as lively, sensuous and evanescent harbours of a floating world.