Impacts Of Approach-avoidance Emotions Of Different Motivation Intensity On Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking as the core of creative thinking,it can reflect the level of a person’s creativity to a certain extent.Although everyone has a stable level of divergent thinking,it can change with the individual’s emotional state.With regard to the influence of emotion on divergent thinking,the current research results are not the same:The result indicated that some studies argued that positive emotions stimulate divergent thinking while negative emotions interfere with it,but others believed it to be the other way around.It can be found from these studies that researchers reached some valuable conclusions,but they tended to focus on solely the dimension of emotional valence when studying the effect of positive and negative emotions on divergent thinking,ignoring the motivation dimension of emotions,which may have caused the discrepancy in findings.This is because the motivational dimensional model of affect shows that positive affects with different approach motivational intensity impact attention breadth differently,with positive affects of high approaching motivation narrowing the attention breadth,and those with a lower motivation expanding the attention breadth,while narrowing and expansion of the attention breadth can have significantly different influences on divergent thinking of the individual.Similarly,negative affects with different avoidance motivation impact the attention breadth of individuals differently,and the narrowing and expansion of the attention breadth have different effects on divergent thinking.Therefore,according to motivational dimensional model of affect,this study managed to divide positive emotions into those with positive emotions of high and low approaching motivation,and negative ones into those with negative emotions of high and low avoidance motivation.Through the emotional pictures to induce different emotional states,in the hope of investigating the effects of different emotions on motivation intensity on divergent thinking.This study consisted of two parts:the pre-experiments and the formal experiments.The pre-experiments mainly evaluated the emotion-inducing materials.We selected 58 pictures for each of the three groups featuring food,landscape and neutral images in the pre-experiment,and then instructed 48 subjects to rate the pictures on a scale of 1-9 based on their valence,arousal and motivation approach intensity induced by the affective pictures,in order to determine whether pictures showing different emotions can induce corresponding reactions in the viewers.Pre-experiment Two first selected 58 pictures for each of the three groups featuring repulsion,sadness and neutral images,and then instructed 54 subjects to rate the pictures on a scale of 1-9 based on their valence,arousal and motivation avoidance intensity induced by the affective pictures,in order to determine whether these pictures can have similar effects on viewers.Pre-experiment One showed that there was no significant difference in dimensions of valence and arousal between the group of pictures showing food(high-approach positive emotion)and the one showing landscape(low-approach positive emotion),while there was a significant difference between the two groups in the dimension of motivation approach intensity,where the former is much higher than the latter.Pre-experiment Two showed that there was no significant difference in dimensions of valence and arousal between the group of pictures showing repulsion(high-avoidance negative emotion)and the one showing sadness(low-avoidance negative emotion),while there was a significant difference between the two groups in the dimension of motivation avoidance intensity,where the former is much higher than the latter.To achieve the experiment objectives,two formal experiments were designed.Formal Experiment One adopted the single-factor within subject design to explore the influence of positive emotions with high and low motivation on divergent thinking.Formal Experiment Two adopted the single-factor within subject design to investigate the influence of negative emotions of high and low avoidance motives on divergent thinking.The main results of this study are as follows:(1)Formal Experiment One showed that the level of divergent thinking of the subject under positive emotions with low approach motivation was significantly higher than those under positive emotions with high approach motivation and the neutral emotion.However,the level of divergent thinking of the subject under positive emotions with high approach motivation was not significantly lower than that under the neutral emotion.(2)Formal Experiment Two showed that the level of divergent thinking of the subject under negative emotions with low avoidance motivation was significantly higher than those under negative emotions with high avoidance motivation and the neutral emotion.However,the level of divergent thinking of the subject under negative emotions with high avoidance motivation was significantly lower than that under the neutral emotion.Based on the experimental results obtained in this study,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1)Compared with the neutral emotion,positive emotions with low approach motivation can promote the level of divergent thinking of individuals.Compared with individuals under positive emotions with high approach motivation,those with low approach motivation have a higher level of divergent thinking.(2)Compared with the neutral emotion,negative emotions with low avoidance motivation can promote the level of divergent thinking of individuals,while those with high avoidance motivation can inhibit the level.Compared with individuals under negative emotions with high avoidance motivation,those with low avoidance motivation can be significantly promoted the level of divergent thinking.