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Springer, Psychological Research, 5(76), p. 634-640, 2011

DOI: 10.1007/s00426-011-0358-z

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Creative mood swings: divergent and convergent thinking affect mood in opposite ways

Journal article published in 2011 by Soghra Akbari Chermahini, Bernhard Hommel ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that emotions affect cognitive processes. Recent approaches have also considered the opposite: that cognitive processes might affect people’s mood. Here we show that performing and, to a lesser degree, preparing for a creative thinking task induce systematic mood swings: Divergent thinking led to a more positive mood, whereas convergent thinking had the opposite effect. This pattern suggests that thought processes and mood are systematically related but the type of relationship is process-specific.