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. 2023 Jan 15;13(1):149.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci13010149.

The Effect of Sadness on Visual Artistic Creativity in Non-Artists

Massimiliano Palmiero  1 , Laura Piccardi  2   3 , Marco Giancola  4 , Raffaella Nori  5 , Paola Guariglia  6
Affiliations

The Effect of Sadness on Visual Artistic Creativity in Non-Artists

Massimiliano Palmiero et al. Brain Sci. .

Abstract

The study of the relationships between mood and creativity is long-standing. In this study, the effects of mood states on artistic creativity were investigated in ninety non-artist participants. Mood states were induced by instructing participants to listen to self-selected happy, sad, or neutral music for ten minutes. Then, all participants were asked to make two artistic drawings. To check for mood manipulation, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) was administered before and after listening to the self-selected music. After the mood induction, the negative group reported higher scores than the other two groups in the 'depression' subscale and lower scores than the other two groups in the 'vigour' subscale of the POMS; the positive mood group showed more vigour than the negative mood group. Yet, three independent judges assigned higher ratings of creativity and emotionality to the drawings produced by participants in the negative mood group than drawings produced by participants in the other two groups. These results confirmed that specific negative mood states (e.g., sadness) positively affect artistic creativity, probably because participants are more likely to engage in mood-repairing. Limitations and future research directions are presented.

Keywords: creativity; divergent thinking; drawing; emotion; mood induction; music; sadness; valence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Rating of the ‘vigor’ sub-score of the POMS before and after mood induction, with respect to positive, negative and neutral music groups. The error bars represent the standard errors of the means.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Rating of the ‘depression’ sub-score of the POMS before and after mood induction, with respect to positive, negative and neutral music groups. The error bars represent the standard errors of the means.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Rating of the creativity, emotionality and aesthetic value of the artistic drawings with respect to positive, negative and neutral music groups. The error bars represent the standard errors of the means.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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