Influence of Positive Affect upon Creative Thinking and Problem Solving in Children

A study was designed to assess whether positive affect may promote creativity and facilitate problem solving of children. The task used to measure creativity involved word generation. Subjects were presented a category name and asked to generate as many exemplars as possible. Duncker's (1945) candle task was used to assess problem-solving skills. Eighth grade students were randomly assigned to the Positive Affect or Neutral condition. A positive mood was induced in subjects in the Positive Affect condition by presenting compliments and gifts before the experimental session began. Subjects in the Neutral condition began the experiment without compliments or gifts. Subjects in the Positive Affect condition generated more exemplars for the categories and more unusual exemplars than did subjects in the Neutral condition. More subjects in the Positive Affect condition correctly solved the candle problem than did those in the Neutral condition. These results suggest that positive affect may promote creativity and facilitate problem solving by young adolescents.