Year: 2014
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Although research has generally shown that positive affect broadens attentional scope and enhances creativity, recent evidence suggests that the mood-attention relationship depends on the present dominant attentional focus. The current research seeks to extend these findings to the ability to solve insight problems. Undergraduates were primed to focus globally or locally and induced with a mood before completing insight problems. Contrary to past research, participants primed with a local, as opposed to global, focus of attention solved significantly more insight problems. There was no significant mood-attention interaction on insight problem-solving ability. This suggests that convergent thinking may play as substantial a role as divergent thinking in insight problem solving. Moreover, at least in the realm of insight, mood does not act as a signal that determines if a dominant attentional focus is acted upon or not.
Author: Eureka C.Y. Foong
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W599006354