The Relationship between Positive Affection, Negative Affection and Intrinsic Motivation with Creativity

Creativity as the ability to generate novel ideas and think creatively about problems, has long been considered an important skill for individuals, as well as for societies. Therefore, this research was carried out to study the relationship between positive affection, negative affection and intrinsic motivation with creativity. Among students of Tehran University 100 were selected using stratified random sampling to participate in the research. Research questionnaires included: Watson et al (1988), 20 item questionnaire for Assessment of Positive and Negative Affection, Amabile and Tierney’s (1999), 5 item intrinsic motivation questionnaire, and Palmon et al (2004), 11 item creativity questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, step by step multiple regression analysis, and t- test. The results showed there is positive significant relation between creativity with positive affection and intrinsic motivation. There was also a negative - but not significant- correlation between negative affection and creativity. Based on these results, positive affection and intrinsic motivation could determine respectively 46% and 4% of creativity’s variance. So, positive affection and intrinsic motivation can predict creativity scores, but negative affection is not a suitable predictor for creativity.