Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Two studies run simultaneously investigated the influence of positive affect on creative problem solving as indicated by Duncker's (1945) candle task. Results show that positive affect, as induced by exposure to a funny movie, facilitated a subject's ability to solve the problem in comparison with those in control groups who either saw a control film or who did not view a film at all. In addition, in accord with previous findings (AJamson, 1952; Higgins & Chaires, 1980) , subjects in another comparison group who were exposed to a facilitative display of the items were also more likely than a control group to solve the candle task. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of a positive affective state on accessibility of material and on cognitive organization.