Much work has been done on cognitive processes and creativity, but there is another half to the picture of creativity -- the affect half. This book addresses that other half by synthesizing the information that exists about affect and creativity and presenting a new model of the role of affect in the creative process. Current information comes from disparate literatures, research traditions, and theoretical approaches. There is a need in the field for a comprehensive framework for understanding and investigating the role of affect in creativity. The model presented here spells out connections between specific affective and cognitive processes important in creativity, and personality traits associated with creativity. Identifying common findings and themes in a variety of research studies and descriptions of the creative process, this book integrates child and adult research and the classic psychoanalytic approach to creativity with contemporary social and cognitive psychology. In so doing, it addresses two major questions: * Is affect an important part of the creative process? * If it is, then how is affect involved in creative thinking? In addition, Russ presents her own research program in the area of affect and creativity, and introduces The Affect in Play Scale -- a method of measuring affective expression in children's play -- which can be useful in child psychotherapy and creativity research. Current issues in the creativity area are also discussed, such as artistic versus scientific creativity, adjustment and the creative process, the role of computers in learning about creativity, gender differences in the creative process, and enhancing creativity in home, school, and work settings. Finally, Russ points to future research issues and directions, and discusses alternative research paradigms such as mood-induction methods versus children's play procedures.

This book brings together leading scholars in the field of creativity to provide an overview and examination of the work of Teresa Amabile, a pioneer of research on organizational creativity. The authors explore Dr. Amabile’s contributions to the modern study of creativity in organizations and her influence on current research. Further, they also reflect on how her work might be used to advance future research, particularly in the areas of componential theory and its extension as well as the consensual assessment technique. The contributors include both eminent and emerging scholars and their diverse backgrounds can be seen to reflect the breadth of the impact of Teresa Amabile’s work across the areas of the social psychology of creativity, creativity measurement, and application of this knowledge to understanding creativity and innovation in the workplace. This book will provide an invaluable resource to students and scholars of social psychology, creativity studies, industrial and organizational psychology, business and management.

Why do painters paint? Obviously, there are numerous possible reasons. They paint to create images for others’ enjoyment, to solve visual problems, to convey ideas, and to contribute to a rich artistic tradition. This book argues that there is yet another, crucially important but often overlooked reason. Painters paint to feel. They paint because it enables them to experience special feelings, such as being absorbed in creative play and connected to something vitally significant. Painting may even transform the painter’s whole sense of being. Thus, painting is not only about producing art, communicating content, and so on, but also about setting up and inhabiting an experiential space wherein highly valued feelings are interactively enabled and supported. This book investigates how and why this happens by combining psychoanalytical theorization on creativity with philosophical thinking on affectivity. It focuses on creative experience itself, and illuminates the psychological mechanisms and dynamics that underlie the affects at stake. Painters’ own descriptions of how they feel at work are used throughout to give an accurate, true-to-life portrayal of the experience of painting. The strength of the book lies in its open-minded yet critical integration of contemporary psychoanalytic and philosophical thinking, and in its truthfulness to painters’ experiential descriptions of the painterly process. On the whole, it enriches our understanding of artistic creativity and sheds more light on how and why we come to feel the things we do. As such, the book will appeal to philosophers, psychoanalysts, and art researchers alike.

The authors of this volume attempt to cohere the field of creativity and affect in a scholarly fashion by categorizing and characterizing some of its major features, including environmental influences; underlying processes; specific affective states; the role of atypical or pathological personalities; unconscious processes; physiological components; proactive and reactive stimuli; intrinsic motivation; eminence versus everyday creativity; and testing of assessing the affective component of creativity. The authors also examine and discuss the role that emotions, feelings and moods play in the creative process. This volume also provides a vehicle for students and psychotherapists, with which they can fully appreciate the feelings generated by the creative process and the various stages of it. How does a creator feel during its more mundane phases? Can he or she tolerate the frustration of failing and being unsuccessful most of the time? What is the real joy of achievement, success, and ultimate acceptance by one's peers in a given field? Do we have to exhibit major psychopathological features in order to achieve eminence in specific fields? What is the role of mind altering substances, mood disorders, and the like? This volume answers these questions and more.

Rapid technological change, global competition, and economic uncertainty have all contributed to organizations seeking to improve creativity and innovation. Researchers and businesses want to know what factors facilitate or inhibit creativity in a variety of organizational settings. Individual Creativity in the Workplace identifies those factors, including what motivational and cognitive factors influence individual creativity, as well as the contextual factors that impact creativity such as teams and leadership.The book takes research findings out of the lab and provides examples of these findings put to use in real world organizations. - Identifies factors facilitating or inhibiting creativity in organizational settings - Summarizes research on creativity, cognition, and motivation - Provides real world examples of these factors operating in organizations today - Highlights creative thought processes and how to encourage them - Outlines management styles and leadership to encourage creativity - Explores how to encourage individual creativity in team contexts

Shame and Creativity: From Affect Towards Individuation is about shame and the ways in which we can use creative methods to transform shame into a lifelong process of self-development. Using a Jungian understanding of the personal and collective unconscious, shame is described as a key affect in relation to self-worth and quality of life. The book is divided into three parts. Part One is about shame, based on affect theory, Jungian psychology and psychological creativity. Part Two discusses shame in relation to seven primary affects, introducing the ‘Blue Diamante model’ to describe how shame is often hidden behind other affects and suggesting that all affects must be involved in processing shame. Part Three identifies the steps in the ‘Blue Diamante model’ with the ancient myth of Inanna’s descent to the underworld; it discusses the development of the original self behind shame and presents a new model for transforming the relationship between the masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche, together with art therapy methods. The originality of Shame and Creativity lies in its combination of affect theory, Jungian psychology and a creative methodology. It aims to inspire clinicians to recognize shame and to work more directly with shame as it appears in therapy. The book will be of great interest to art therapists and students of art therapy. It will also appeal to all readers interested in creativity, shame, Jungian analysis and affect theory.

With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects.