Effects Of Affect On Verbal Creativity—From The Perspectives Of Trait And State

Creation and innovation are the important foundation and driving force for human development and progress. Creative thinking is necessary to grow as innovative talents, which is essential to society and everyone. Understanding deeply the mechanisms of how affect influence creativity is also a key prerequisite to fostering creativity. Therefore, exploring how to make full use of and cultivate creativity can not only make essential contributions to the social-economical demands, but also have instructional significance for commerce, science and technology, education and all other fields of endeavor. Owing to the rapid and constant development of society and economy, creativity as well as its influencing mechanisms has increasingly become the focus of psychological research.Although a large body of theoretical and empirical work has explored links between affect and creativity, much remains unknown about how affect influences creativity. There is little consensus as to whether or under what conditions trait positive affect(PA) and trait negative affect(NA) facilitate or inhibit creativity. Moreover, numerous studies using diverse approaches clearly demonstrate the inner relationship between creativity and the propensity for affective disorders. However, within the scientific domain, previous literature reviews came to quite different conclusions.Driven by previous research and the disagreement as to the relationships between affect and creativity, the present study aimed to systematically investigated how affect may have their effects on creativity and what brain mechanisms appear to be involved using functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) and structural magnetic resonance imaging(sMRI).Specifically, first of all, using an integrative approach, this study expands current understanding of the underlying interrelationships between latent affective traits and creativity, as assessed by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking(TTCT). Through the structural equation model with latent variables, we established quantitative relationship between latent affective traits and creativity, and lay foundation for further evaluation. Then, we uniquely explored how latent affective traits impacted creativity in a curvilinear manner and simultaneously identified the neuroanatomical mechanisms through which latent affective traits influenced creativity. Factor analysis of trait measures yielded two independent affective factors(trait Positive Affect(PA) and trait Negative Affect(NA)). We found significant U-shaped associations between creativity(both total TTCT creativity score and three sub-dimension scores) and each of initial indicators for trait PA as well as the extracted factor(trait PA). In contrast, no relationships were observed with regard to any indicators for trait NA, but significant U-shaped associations between the extracted factor(trait NA) and creativity(both total TTCT creativity score and originality) were demonstrated. We also provided empirical evidence that trait PA interacted with left inferior frontal gyrus(IFG) volume to predict creativity(both total TTCT creativity score and three sub-dimension scores) such that trait PA was associated with increased creativity only in individuals with relatively high IFG volume. Additionally, exploratory mediation analyses indicated that the relation between trait NA and creativity(both total TTCT creativity score and originality) was explained by volume in the left IFG.Secondly, based on the tasked-based fMRI, the second study investigated the neural mechanisms that influence interrelationships between affective traits, moods, emotional states and creativity. We scanned the participants’ brain activity when they were performing the alternate uses task(AUT). It was found that trait NA can significantly predict originality; joviality, anxiety and energetic during the course of the experiment correlated significantly with originality. Furthermore, participants’ affect(affective traits and affective states) correlated significantly with brain activity during the experiment. Specifically, the brain areas activated in creative problem solving, such as IFG, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC), middle temporal gyrus, precuneus, middle occipital gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, also played an important role in interrelationships between affect and creativity.Finally, in view of the inner relationship between creativity and the propensity for affective disorders, the third study used two-stage screening procedure, Beck depression inventory and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders to screen individuals with subclinical depression(Sub-D) and non-depressed controls(NCs). In the fourth study, we explored the neural mechanisms that influence the inner relationship between creativity and subclinical depression using sMRI and voxel-based morphometry(VBM). VBM results indicated that individuals with Sub-D had significantly more gray matter volume(GMV) in the right IFG, left superior frontal gyrus(SFG) and right middle frontal gyrus(MFG), as well as less GMV in the left superior temporal gyrus(STG), left middle frontal gyrus(MFG), left IFG and right parahippocampal gyrus(PHG). Furthermore, GMV alterations in the right IFG, left SFG and right MFG significantly and positively correlated with total TTCT creativity score, while GMV alterations in the left STG, left MFG, left IFG and right PHG significantly and negatively correlated with total TTCT creativity score. The present study suggests that cognitive control and regulation functions of right IFG, left SFG and right MFG in individuals with Sub-D might decrease and limit their ability to regulate areas involved in affect, which results in decreased latent inhibition and increased rumination predisposition, thereby boosting creativity.In conclusion, from the perspectives of trait and state, the current study systematically investigated how affect may have their effects on creativity and what brain mechanisms appear to be involved using fMRI and sMRI. In addition, we explored the neural mechanisms that influence the inner relationship between subclinical depression and creativity. The present investigation extends disparate lines of research that have associated creativity with affect, and provides preliminary insights into the complexity of the relationships among affect, creativity and brain. The present results are also of clinical relevance for affect and mood disorders. This improved understanding of creative processes will also has implications for vocational guidance(e.g., assessment/selection and management of creative people) and intervention efforts(treatment development and treatment planning). Implications for the creativity and affective dimensions of personality literatures are discussed as well as directions for future research.