Short-term mood repair through art-making: Positiveemotion is more effective than venting

摘要

We examined two mechanisms by whichcreating visual art may serve as a form of short-term moodrepair. After viewing a film that induced a negatively val-enced mood, participants were given a self-report affect gridthat assessed mood valence and arousal. Participants thenengaged in one of three tasks: creating a drawing expressingtheir current mood (venting), creating a drawing depictingsomething happy (positive emotion), or scanning a sheet forspecific symbols (distraction control). Mood valence andarousal were then reassessed. Arousal remained unchangedafter the interventions in all conditions. Valence becamemore positive in all three conditions, but the greatestimprovement occurred after the positive emotion interven-tion. Valence improved no more after venting than after thecontrol task. Results show that in the short-term, attending toand venting one's negative feelings through art-making is aless effective means of improving mood than is turning awayfrom a negative mood to something more positive. Thesefindings are consistent with research on the beneficial effectsof positive emotions and cast doubt on the often assumedview that artists improve their well being by expressingsuffering.