The Flexible Impact of Shared Affect on Creativity in Idea-Generation Groups

Abstract

We conducted two experiments (166 triads) to examine when positive and negative moods shared among members help or hinder group creativity. We show that the effects of shared affect depend on whether groups adopt a global or local attentional focus immediately before the induction of mood. When groups initially adopted a global focus, subsequently inducing a positive mood increased group creativity relative to inducing a negative mood. In contrast, when groups initially adopted a local focus, subsequently inducing a positive mood decreased group creativity relative to inducing a negative mood. These effects were mediated by reductions in idea fixation during collaborative idea generation.