A Successful Creative Process: The Role of Passion and Emotions

Abstract

The creative process refers a sequence of thoughts and actions leading to a novel, adaptive production (Lubart, 2000). It demands love, time, and devotion, and, therefore, creators are passionate toward their creative work. The Dualistic Model of Passion defines passion as a strong inclination for a self-defining activity that people love and find important, and in which they invest a significant amount of time and energy. Two types of passion are proposed, where harmoniously passionate (HP) individuals engage in the passionate activity with free choice, and obsessively passionate (OP) individuals feel an uncontrollable urge to partake in the activity, leading to positive and negative consequences respectively. This research explored the role of emotions and passion during a successful creative process. Study 1 (N ¼ 82) looked at positive emotions experienced by passionate artists at each phase of their creative process. Study 2 (N ¼ 114) replicated Study 1 and also assessed negative emotions. Results revealed that positive emotions facilitate creativity and that moderate and high levels of activation of positive emotions serve different functions. Negative emotions were relatively absent of the successful creative process. Finally, HP artists presented an emotional experience that was more positive than OP artists.

Emotional Creativity as Predictor of Intrinsic Motivation and Academic Engagement in University Students: The Mediating Role of Positive Emotions

“…There is an increasing tendency to study the influence of emotions on creative processes and, inversely, the impact of creative ideas or products on the generation of emotions (St-Louis and Vallerand, 2015). However, dispositional EC implies, according to Averill (2005), an even greater complexity in terms of emotional processes.…”

Passion and Creativity – Together or Separately?

“…Creativity. Theories -Research -Applications 5(1) 2018 Liu, Chen & Yao, 2011;Luh & Lu, 2012;Shi, 2012;St-Louis & Vallerand, 2015). The effect of passion on the creative process alters depending on the accepted definition of passion and its type.…”

“…Whereas positive emotions provide more flexibility and cognitive energy leading to greater creativity and perseverance in the creative process, experiencing negative emotions, especially those of a high level of activation is very often toxic for the creative process and can diminish creativity (Baas et al, 2008;Baas et al, 2012). The researchers conclude that the artists with OP can experience lower levels of creativity than artists with HP due to high levels of experiencing negative emotions (St-Louis & Vallerand 2015). Using The Passion Scale for painting showed that even professional painters with twenty years of experience whose profession demonstrates their high level of creativity experience passion in this respect (Lafrenière, St-Louis, Vallerand, & Donahue, 2012).…”

“…It is considered in the context of human emotions (Csíkszentmihályi, 1996;Tokarz, 2005;Fredricks et al, 2010;St-Louis, Vallerand, 2015). Scientists stress that positive emotions make the creative process easier (Kaufman, 2003;Lubart & Getz, 1997;St-Louis, Vallerand, 2015). Positive emotions open up human beings and make them more creative (Fredrickson, 2001).…”

From fragmentation to imagination: moving to Marketing’s next Era

“…Torrance (1983) argues that having passion, falling in love with something, is key to creative energy, and Kaufman and Gregoire (2015, p. 82) stress, Bcultivating a mind-set that is open and explorative might be the best thing we can do for our creative work.^On the flip side of passion, Csikszentmihalyi (2013) reminds us that creative individuals temper their passion with objectivity. Indeed, work on being imaginative envisages the many possibilities for addressing meaningful issues of theoretical and practical relevance in marketing (Csikszentmihalyi 2013;St-Louis and Vallerand 2015).…”