There is a clear connection between emotion and decision-making. Creative thinking is just another way of making decisions.
This short video animation, drawn live (not by software) is an exploration into the relationship between emotion and creativity and looks at what governs our creative process. It’s a mind map of the thinking process based on some views from Neuroscience and Philosophy.
In my view creative thinking is a quintessential human quality. Our ability to find oblique solutions to problems, to make unusual associations, to re-adapt existing knowledge to new forms, or to break apart existing knowledge and re-assemble in new forms is what separates our minds from the minds of other animals.
Our emotions are not based in logic and reason, they seem to represent our subconscious thinking, they have physicality, we don’t seem to be in control of them, they arrive unannounced. Emotions go to the very heart of what we believe and how we make meaning out of the world.
There is a circular relationship between belief, emotion, action and possibility, that informs how we view the world and how we behave in the world. Emotions are what call us to action.
Emotions are our first line of defense, they tell us how we feel about an event, they hasten us to react. It’s interesting to refer this to Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking fast and slow” where he looks at the two main modes of thinking, which might be defined as conscious (slow) and unconscious (fast).
Creative thinking will tend to be a combination of both fast and slow thinking, but above all involves playfulness.