Abstract
Each day presents an opportunity to engage in small acts of creativity. In the present study, we aimed to understand the ecology of everyday creativity: how certain emotions may help or hinder creative pursuits and who behaves more creatively on a daily basis. We recruited a large sample of 658 young adults (17 to 25 years of age; M = 19.8 years) who rated their creativity and their experience of 18 positive and negative emotion states each day for 13 days using an Internet daily diary method. High-activation positive emotions like feeling excited, energetic, and enthusiastic were the most favorable to everyday creativity. Young adults higher in these states reported the most creativity overall, and, on days when people experienced these states, creativity was higher than normal. Medium-and low-activation positive-emotion states like happiness and relaxation were also beneficial to creativity, although not as strongly. Negative-emotion states were unrelated to, or antagonistic with creativity. People higher in openness reported the most creativity, which was more strongly yoked to their emotions: They were more creative on emotionally positive days and less creative on emotionally negative days. These findings suggest that creative days are characterized by greater emotional zest and engagement, that open people are creative people, and that personality modulates the emotion-creativity link. Fostering feelings of engagement, zest, and greater openness to new experiences may be the keys to everyday creativity.