Positive Moods Increase Creativity and Observation, Study Says

[18 December 2006 - Bloomberg] People in positive moods absorb more information and are more creative, says a study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When people are in good moods, compared with neutral or negative ones, they change the way they perceive their surroundings, according to the study's author Adam Anderson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto in Toronto. "You can actually put people into a more creative mindset by putting them in a positive mood,'' he said. Past studies had linked positive emotions and creativity, Anderson said. His study in this week's edition of PNAS focuses on showing for the first time that "positive mood changes our capacity to see and increases our capacity to take in information in our world,'' he said. More