Sadness Linked to Smarts
Creativity and depression have gone hand in hand. There have been many accounts of depressed artists who have created brilliant works in their bouts of depression. Classic examples are Van Gogh and the thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato. This correlation has scientific backing. Modupe Akinola, a professor at Columbia Business School conducted experiments on these “down” emotions and their correlation with creativity. The experiment used positive and negative feedback and at the end, the patients were asked to produce a creative work. At the end of the experiment, these pieces of work were analyzed by artists for their creativity. Patients who received negative feedback often created better artwork. Columbia University is not the only institute finding correlations between the two unlikely factors. Joe Forgas of the University of South Wales in Australia believes that sad and angst states create a mindset that is better for dealing with demanding situations. He has found that sad people recall past events better and make fewer arithmetic mistakes. Awareness and attentiveness were also increased. Feelings do have an affect on our ability to create thoughts. While sadness may increase diligence, happiness has an opposite effect. Happiness can dull a person’s awareness and perceptions. In more depth, sadness affects a person’s attention span and focus. Creativity comes with an ability of relentless focus. It’s simply easier to achieve this focus when a person isn’t happy. The quality of work a person produces increases when they are sad. Kay Redfield Jamison of Johns Hopkins found a correlation between success and depressive mental illness. Emotions affect the way we think.
This article gives insight into how emotions dictate our way of thinking. Human beings are emotional creatures. It is often rare to see emotion completely eliminated from our thoughts and decisions. While we may not be able to make more rational decisions, people should understand how emotions affect them. Emotions such as sadness have an effect on creativity and attention. If this is true other emotions must also have an effect on us as well. Understanding the state of mind we think with and increasing awareness of our actions is important for any person. I chose this article personally because I was interested to see how emotion and creativity are correlated. I read the article expecting the opposite of what was stated and came out more informed. My perceptions were that sadness would detrimentally affect a person’s creativity. This article gives perspective to our emotions.
The article was easy to read and was written for the common person. It would have been interesting to see more of the scientific reasons behind these correlations. In addition, more in depth examples of sadness and creativity would have been appreciated. The article gives a good summary of how everyday perceptions are affected. The article could have been more informative if it gave more information on specific activities. If specific examples were evaluated such as playing an instrument or painting, the article would have been more informative and insightful. The experiments conducted in the research were also subjective. Emotions were incited through comments, music and weather. These emotions are subjective and can create different effects for different people. More scientific and controlled experiments would give more creditability to the article.
The article was a well written, easy to read article on how sadness affects our thoughts. The insights into sadness should help future scientists learn more about our emotions.
Lehrer, Jonah. "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative." WIRED. Conde Nast Digital 2010. Web. 19 Oct. 2010. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us more-creative
I found this review interesting, as the idea that depression, or at least sadness, and creativity are linked is not a new idea. The experiment was well presented, as it was explained in simple terms; essentially, the experiment would evaluate the participants psychologically and have them create works of art, which would then be judged for their level of creativity. Also, I thought the general hypothesis of the article was explained well. Too often, reviewers will sum up the article without giving a general overview of what it is actually based on. I also enjoyed Tony’s review of the article, his take on how the article directly affected humans. It is often hard to relate scientific articles to everyday life, but Tony did a good job in pointing out that our emotions play a huge role in second-to-second thinking, not just day-to-day life.
ReplyDeleteTo make the review better, I would have put the hypothesis at the beginning, to start the review off strong and give the reader a more clear view of what the article was about. Readers like to know the generalization an experiment supports before the logistics are explained. Also, the conclusions that the author drew from the review himself could have been better organized, although they were strong arguments that I felt made sense when I concentrated.
I was interested to learn how depression and other emotions affect creativity. There is a definite though amongst most people that artists seem to pull most of their greatest work from depressive episodes, and finally having some scientific research to back it up was fascinating. In past years, this had even been a topic on the PSATs, examining artists in relation to their emotions in critical reading passages.
This study on the effects of negativity on creative passion was very intriguing, and well presented. The primary reason it was so enjoyable is because they took complex sciences and put them in laymen’s examples—that we could encounter in our everyday lives as readers. For example, it refers to the higher quality of arithmetic. This was helpful because, if we were given examples that we, as people, did not think represented a normal day’s activities, they would have less of an impact on us; meaning, we would find their results erroneous. Secondly, they did a good job conveying the antithesis of the theory; that is sadness is equated with increasing creativity and that happiness is equated with decreased creativity. This comes to mind before it is stated; however our conclusions are reinforced by their statement, affirming a sense of understanding in the reader. It states that the correlation, which seems to be obvious, indeed has scientific basis. Finally, I found that their examples of painters and artists who illustrate this helps reinforce the premise of the article. Without examples, the reader is left to imagine. When the names such as Van Gogh, widely recognized, it is relatable because readers understand the high quality of work produced—thus the great effect of emotions.
ReplyDeleteThough this article was informative and clearly organized, it could’ve been more useful if it had given examples of how the results were reached. For example, two students were told to create a painting while being commented on negatively. Or perhaps the subjects had undergone a few hours of stimuli which changed their moods—one happy, one sad. Then recorded results. Secondly, I feel that although it was easier to read in laymen’s terms, it may be too general to ascertain a full understanding of why this finding is scientific. It is understood that experiments have been conducted, but I’d like to understand what the biomechanics behind this effect are.
I would say was not impressed with the findings of this article because having written a lot of Creative Writing, I have found this to be true in myself. So it was not a realization or discovery to me, however it is cool to know that there is scientific basis for this connection. Overall, a well presented article on an interesting subject that we can all associate with.
To start i think tony choose an extremly interesting artical that portrays the human condition through scientific eyes. Also i liked that he choose an artical that was some what unusally, because originally i would have though that depression would lead people to be less artistic and crative. However through evidence such as van gough and resasearch studys it is easy for the reader to understand that the concept does have some backround which would lead someone to the logical conclusion that depression makes us creative. Lastly i liked listening to Tonys perspective on the subject because it allowed me to view the artical through the researches eyes, as well as an outside observer such as my self. I felt that Tony's perception was similar to my own and allowed me to understand he artical even better knowing that i was not alone in my thinking. One thing that i would suggest for next time is that tony picks an artical that had more scientific backing although the articale was simple and easy to understand they never really adressed the scientific reasoning for why this happens in people which may lead the reader to question the findings. To prevent this next time Tony should look for an articale that can be explained using scientific examples. Lastly next time it would help if Tony but the experiment in terms of the scientific method presenting the hypothisis, experiment, data, and conclusion because it would allow the reader to follow the whole process making it is for thereader to understand how the arthur reached his conclusions. The only problem with this artical is that it does review a truly important topic because even though it is interesting the idea and findings could have been concluded from middle school students. So even though it was interesting next time it would be better to see an articale that talks of something that is not likly to be seen by the average person and that a group of trained individuals have to get involved in in order to solve the original problem.
ReplyDeleteThe review brought up an interesting idea of the connection between depression and creativity. Theoretically, the experiment has no flaws. It sampled artwork of people with different psychological feelings. There was a direct link between the depressed patients and the ability to create better art. The review explained the basis of the experiment quite clearly, as well. The articles validity is strengthened through examples of great artists who suffered from depression such as Pablo Picasso and Van Gogh. The review explained the correlation between creativity and depression well, but it could have more clearly interpreted the process used to reach these results.
ReplyDeleteThe reviewer associates the research with other successful experiments. It rests the conclusion about the experiment to be made on the previous research as opposed to explaining how it has shows positive results. Also, if the review gave a better hypothesis of the article in the beginning, the reader would know more easily what to extrapolate from the article.
The idea behind the research is quite interesting. It is common that most artists have tumultuous lives and often have periods of depression, which produce some of their best work. To find out that there is science that supports this common conception is intriguing. History definitely agrees with the research which makes it feel even more concrete.