ABSTRACT
The artist’s life is commonly viewed as an emotionally unstable, agony-filled, but creative life. Many people, including artists themselves, might even go so far as to assert that if artists are not tormented, morose, or at least distressed and unhappy, they cannot truly be creative or that if they were to go through therapy and “get better,” that would be the end of their creativity. Their “creative juices” ostensibly are sustained by tragedy and turmoil. Or to put it bluntly: “Artists lick their wounds for nourishment not for healing” (Wayne, 1974, p. 107). Implicit in this view is the assumption that negative affect somehow acts as a cause of creativity or, at the very least, facilitates the creative process. These assumptions are in fact empirical questions, and one can ask, Does an artist really need to be miserable to be creative? Does an improved psychological state mean an end to creative productivity? Even if there is a relationship between negative affect and creativity, it is quite possible that the affect is a result, rather than a cause, of creative thought. In a related vein, there is the question of what impact psychotherapy generally has on a person’s creative input. Does successfully going through therapy tend to increase or decrease creative achievement? Each of these questions can and ultimately must be addressed empirically if psychologists are to move beyond anecdotal lore. Moreover, these questions concern only negative affect, which is but half of the affect involved in the affect-creativity picture. An increasing body of literature demonstrates the importance of positive affect in the creative process, both as an antecedent (Estrada, Isen, & Young, 1994; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987) and as a consequent of creative insight (Feist, 1994; Gruber, 1995; Otto & Schmitz, 1993). Being in a positive mood appears to facilitate creative problem solving, and strong emotional reactions tend to follow creative insight.
