From Positive Affect to Creativity: The Surprising Role of Surprise

ABSTRACT: Positive affect generally leads to higher creativity but sometimes to lower creativity. These contradictory results may be due to researchers treating positive affect as a unitary phenomenon. Positive affect represents a broad affective response, and different components of positive affect may influence cognitive processes through different mechanisms. This study used humorous videotapes to generate positive affect with components ranging from pleasantness to elation to surprise, then tested how the different components of affect might mediate the affect induction to performance relationship on a creative task. The study revealed a significant treatment by gender interaction (men's performance increased following the positive affect induction; women's remained unchanged). As planned, the affect induction generated a broad affective response in the men (combinations of pleasantness plus arousal), but only induced pleasantness in the women, suggesting that activation or arousal may be necessary for positive affect to have an influence. In direct tests of mediation, surprise was found to fully mediate the relationship between the positive affect induction and creativity. The mediating role of surprise provides an important step in identify the mechanism(s) linking positive affect to creativity.