Investigation of the Relationship between Mood and Divergent Thinking

Abstract: This study investigated the link between mood which was induced with music and fa- cial expression, and divergent thinking. A total of 377 participants from two different univer- sities and one company in Germany were allocated to either the control group or to one of the two experimental groups “happy” or “sad”. Participants in the happy and sad group watched a power-point presentation including pictures of facial expressions while listening to music and doing a facial feedback exercise to induce happy or sad mood. Afterwards participants were asked to complete the Unusual Uses Test (UUT) for a brick and a paperclip. Participants from the control group only answered the UUT which measured divergent thinking and can be seen as a useful estimator to predict creativity. The results underlined that the mood manipulation was successful. In addition, the study found evidence that an increasing mood score leads to a higher creativity score, indicating that a pleasant mood fosters creativity, whereas an unpleas- ant mood decreases creativity. Overall the findings imply that there is a weak relationship be- tween mood and creativity, measured with the UUT.