**2. Types of emotions**

Paul Eckman advocated in 1972 that there were six basic emotions in the universe: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness [4]; this was expanded to include joy and acceptance by Pollack [5] in later years. Robert Plutchik in 1980,

#### *Emotional Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104544*

however, argued that humans do not necessarily exhibit one type of emotion in reaction to a particular situation all the time. He opined that in most cases, there is what is called "mixed feelings," where two or more emotions combine as an expression over a situation. Therefore, though phycologist tells us that there are about 34,000 emotional feelings, American psychologist Dr. Robert Plutchik have argued that the 34,000 emotions are the permutations of the eight distinctive primary emotions that serve as a foundation to any form of emotion [6]. These are joy, sadness, surprise, disgust, anticipation, anger, acceptance, and fear [5, 7]. These emotions trigger certain physical and physiological activities in the body or brain such as crying, laughter, jumping, hugging, writing, dancing, or sicknesses such as depression and high blood pressure. This activity is often termed creativity depending on how unique, beneficial or detrimental, and visible the activity is to a third party, society, or the individual. When the activity is unique, visible, and beneficial and awakens the expression of joy, excitement, and surprise especially to many people, it is termed creative. When it is unique, visible, and detrimental and awakens the expression of sadness, shock, sorrow, and pain to anybody, it is termed the dark side of creativity. Continuing from the example of the bear in the last paragraph, if the person's reaction after being frightened leads to a unique or new, beneficial, or detrimental activity or a project upon seeing the bear, there establishes a link between a person's emotions and creative abilities. According to Hoffmann [8], emotions and feelings are intricately related to creativity, in that reactions triggered by emotions often lead to a person burying himself in work to develop a product, writing a poem, or development of "lessons learned," which becomes a solution to other people's problems.

### **2.1 What is emotional creativity?**

Emotional creativity is defined as "a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience" [9]. It is a critical component in the creative process. It is the ability to create something new through the influence of emotions evoked from the personal or experiences of others. Creative works inspired by emotions are often original and greeted with Euphoria.

More often than not, people misconstrue emotions to be feelings or moods and even use them interchangeably, thus wondering how such traits can lead to creativity. There are, however, differences in these variables [10]. These differences are determined according to the timing of occurrence of these variables when a situation occurs, warranting emotional, feeling, or mood response and also the level of involvement or interactions with certain organs of the body. Emotions are triggered as a form of response to a situation; it involves interaction between the brain, the heart, and other organs of the body. Feelings come in mostly second after emotional processes have occurred, and the person is brooding over the issue and one feels physical and emotional sensations. It does not necessarily have to involve the heart; it is the reason someone can "feel cold" because of cold or icy weather, which has nothing to do with the heart as compared to feeling emotionally cold toward someone. It usually lasts longer than emotions. Moods are usually not necessarily triggered by an event, situation, or circumstances; there are times when people just wake up from sleep and claim they are not in the mood to talk or they are in a good or bad mood. In such circumstances, they sing all day when in good mood and when in bad mood wear a frown all day and bark at the least provocation; these scientists have attributed to the activities of "mood swing" hormones such as estrogen and progesterone. In situations where it occurs because of a specific situation, it can occur before feelings or after feelings have been expressed.

In all these variables, however, the determining factor for creativity or creative performance is what Psychologist Eddie Harmon-Jones calls emotional and motivational intensity. The intensity of emotional feelings, such as joy, anger, sadness, etc., generates motivational intensity, which provides the impetus for creativity [11]. According to motivational intensity theory, low motivational intensity broadens attention leading to the search for new goals to pursue. The discovery of purposeful goals increases the level of intensity for creative performance [6]. When the search for goals to pursue under low intensity is not discovered, boredom sets in, which sometimes leads to depression, stifling creativity. High motivational intensity narrows attention and focus leading to the completion of a specific goal. High intensity, therefore, fosters a high level of creativity [6]. Many argue that motivational intensity is a more important factor and a driving force in determining emotional creativity than the positivity and negativity of emotional experience. However, critics have been quick to point out that the positivity and negativity of emotional experiences form the basis for motivation. These critics have explained that the positivity or negativity of emotions is what motivates people to behave in a certain way, which sometimes leads to creative performance, and that if negative or positive emotions were not to exist, the motivational intensity would not exist for creative performance to happen. For instance, when someone is excited, the positive emotion is what will motivate the person to act in a manner, which exudes joy, and if they have been angered, then that negative emotion will motivate them to act violently against the person who offended them.

#### **2.2 Positive versus negative emotions**

Positive and negative emotions are inevitable in life; life experiences impose such emotions as part of human development or maturity. A positive emotion can be described as a pleasant feeling in reaction to a situation or a circumstance, while a negative emotion is explained as an unpleasant and undesirable feeling in reaction to a situation or a circumstance. Some examples of situations or circumstances that awaken some pleasant or unpleasant are discussed in the following. Let us consider a situation where one loses a loved one. The act of losing the loved one is the person's situation or circumstance; the expression of the emotion of sadness, sorrow, or emptiness is the feeling in reaction to an unwanted experience described as a negative emotion. Similarly, the joy of earning one's first paycheck after school is the person's circumstance, and the expression of the emotion of ecstasy is the feeling in reaction to a beautiful experience described as a positive emotion. As has previously been discussed, emotions are not always experienced or expressed in their pure forms as posited by Robert Plutchik; people sometimes experience a mixed form of these emotions [4]. For instance, getting married could invoke several different emotions, such as joy, anxiety, and fear of the unknown, in one person at the same time or at the varying time; in other words, the person is experiencing or is in a certain situation but experiencing different emotions. The mixed feeling, however, often occurs when the situation or circumstances are either within a period of expectation or situation not in finality. When the issue invoking the mixed feeling comes to finality in most cases, the individual experiences either a positive or negative emotion.

On March 10, 1999, Paul Njoroge kissed his wife Carole, three children Ryan, Kelly, Ruby, and his mother-in-law who were on board Boeing 737 Max goodbye. They were taking a short trip and were expected to return soon. He had barely made his way out of the airport when he heard from news update that the plane had crashed. He was in a state of fear and anxiety but at the same time filled with hope that God

#### *Emotional Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104544*

will intervene and keep members of his family alive. All these mixed emotions engulfed his being as he drove defenselessly to the airport. A crowd of anxious relatives of persons on board the plane was mounting up. As information flow stagnated and the confirmation of survivors delayed, anger began to consume Paul's being, yet he hanged on to the slim rope of hope. He edged away from persons who had given up hope and were wailing even before hearing from officials. He did not want to entertain the thought of losing his entire family. When official confirmation reached Paul that there were no survivors and all 149 passengers had died, all hope of seeing his family immediately disappeared. He moved from fear, anxiety, and hope to anger and now pain and loneliness. Paul has since then been living with friends; he cannot bear to return home to see the shoes of his children at the living area where they had left them that day. He has a flashback of their tiny feet in those shoes, but he knows he will never see them running around the house or making noise again. Paul declared that he could never return to his house; the pain and the loneliness come alive whenever he pictures his family in that house. How Paul decides to channel this highly intense emotional trauma will determine an outcome that would be categorized as a creative performance or not. If the outcome is categorized as a creative performance, then we say his emotion has powered creativity; thus, emotional creativity has been fostered through his experience.

Negative emotions often power creativity in solitude or are championed as a solo project, while positive emotions often occur within a team. While the creative outcome of positive emotions is very helpful and impactful, it does not often strike a deep emotional chord in third parties as negative emotions do. Think about it, how many songs, artwork, architectural work, and discoveries that captivated the world were inspired by positive emotion, very few. However, if we were to survey many organizations to find out the number of groundbreaking inventions that were carried out because someone had the confidence, hope, and passion to invent, it will be numerous. Examples of creative performance or creative work inspired by positive performance though existing and prevalent, the outcome is often not traced to a specific positive emotion because positive emotions are difficult to sustain for a long period and often not centered on one person. The creative performance or creative works of negative emotions, however, gain popularity very easily, mainly for two reasons. First, negative emotions linger longer than positive ones; hence, the required intensity to motivate or inspire a creative work is often sustained until the completion of the work. Second, in many cultures around the world, people are brought up or trained to be empathetic and conditioned to think that empathy is feeling another person's pain. So, although empathy is understanding and sharing the feelings of others, the "feelings" in the definition of empathy have been replaced with pain. Therefore, when someone develops a creative piece and shares his source of inspiration for the work and has a tint of negative emotions, such as pain, rejection, loneliness, etc., there is the tendency for the work to enjoy the widespread expression of empathy leading to acceptance and popularity.

Negative emotions at the workplace are often not welcomed in organizations. Such negative emotions, like jealousy and envy, could be detrimental to the creative and general performance of an organization [12]. A person envious of a colleague could frustrate efforts at developing a creative process or product just so recognition for good work does not go to someone other than him or her. Positive emotions that are highly desirous in organizations tend to inspire, engage, and empower the team to creative performance. Joe Forgas, a social psychologist, asserts that though negative emotions are often assumed to be detrimental to creativity or humanity, they

sometimes catalyze creative production [11]. He explained that although both positive and negative emotions take varying paths, they can both lead to creativity. Joe Forgas posited that while positive feelings stimulate creativity out of the satisfaction of life, negative emotions such as sadness sharpen attention, making a person more focused and diligent toward creative performance [11]. Happenings around the world tell us that creativity and creative performance are not always an outcome of positive emotions; negative emotions can also generate creativity depending on where the aggressiveness that usually characterizes such emotions is channeled. Let us consider some notable examples of how negative emotions inspired some artists to capture the attention of the world with their creative work.

#### *2.2.1 You're beautiful (song): james blunt*

"You're beautiful" when released in 2005 as a single reached number 1 and 2 on music charts in the UK and Australia, respectively. It reached number 1 in music charts and airplay in Canada and the USA leading to the song-winning Ivor Novello award for airplay in 2006. The song sold 625,000 copies in the UK and over three million copies in the USA [13]. It is the first single to reach number 1 on music charts in 10 major cities in the world, including Spain, Mexico, Canada, the USA, the UK, and The Netherlands. It was the first American Idol song to become the number 1 song on the USA billboard hot 100 [13]. The song received three Grammy nominations in 2007 and won the BMI Internet Award for most plays on BMI-licensed websites in 2007. This song that received global subscriptions and airplay was inspired by a negative emotion experienced by the writer and singer, James Blunt [13]. Blunt confirmed on Oprah Winfrey's show on March 8, 2006 that the inspiration for the song was from a place of misery. He told the audience of how he spotted his ex-girlfriend at the Underground in London with her new boyfriend; this stirred in him an unwanted emotion, which inspired him to write a song that reached number 1 in major countries and sold over 3 million copies in the USA alone in just 2 minutes [13].

#### *2.2.2 Candle in the wind (song): elton John*

When Elton John, a UK artist, heard of the death of Princess Diana, his close friend, he went into a devastating depression. Elton John felt he had to pay tribute to his friend through a song, but the time was too short; he, therefore, contacted his writing partner Bernie Taupin, and the words of Candle in the Wind originally performed in 1973 were rewritten to depict the pain of losing his friend Princess Diana [14]. To date, Elton John has performed the song only once at the funeral of Princess Dianna, but when the song "Candle in the Wind" was released as a single after the funeral, it broke records by being number 1 in a large number of countries, which was affirmed by the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest-selling single of all time [14].

So far, we have discussed creativity in terms of tangibility. Often when we talk or think about creativity, what comes to mind is Mona Lisa paintings, iconic buildings, or beautiful songs or poetry, things we can see, touch or hear but what of the process of ideation? How does our emotion relate to or influence our ability to generate new or fresh ideas to solve problems. The answer is creative thinking; it is not very different from what we perceive creativity to be because before one will decide to write lyrics to a song inspired by a particular emotion, the development of the idea is first constructed in the mind before it is written and sung. Researchers at the World Economic Forum suggest that creative thinking is one of the most essential skills needed by

### *Emotional Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104544*

work professionals or skilled workers and future leaders [15]. Creative thinking has been described as nurturing one's imagination to perceive possibilities aimed at developing ideas to solve problems or create something new. The emotions impact creative thinking in similar ways as has been previously discussed. It is instructive to note that, while negative emotions are not desirous at workplaces and positive emotions are perceived to be idle for creative performance at the workplace, this line of thinking could be misleading. If positive emotions necessarily lead to creative performance at the workplace, then all advertised job vacancies would indicate a preference for sanguine personality trait as a key job requirement since it is perceived to spur positive emotions, an assertion shared by Bojanowska and Zalewska [16], who have categorized the sanguine personality trait as a happy temperament. While emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, and confidence inspire creativity and increase productivity, those same traits could become a source of destruction in the organization. Some employees in expressing happiness or joy go about drinking, playing loud music, chitchatting, and gossiping, which tend to destruct others from working and make the company lose productive time. Negative emotions such as anger and resentment borne out of being denied promotion if controlled can be used as motivation for personal improvement [17]. This presupposes that, that not all emotions whether positive or negative lead to creativity and creative performance, there must be a deliberate attempt at controlling or stirring the emotion toward a creative outcome; to do this, one needs a special skill referred to as emotional intelligence.
