Fast & Variable Thinking Drives Positive Emotions
In Thought Speed, Mood and The Experience of Mental Motion, two Princeton psychologists argue that positive affect is generated by faster and varied thinking. That is, the more thoughts we have per unit time and the less related the thoughts are the more mental energy we generate through excitement, elation, happiness and even an increased sense of self confidence and power.
Although the authors discuss the implications for therapy (e.g. manic thinking) this is a potentially important finding for cognitive designers interested in creating artifacts that generate positive affect (mental energy).
Games appear to make use of this principle. Take for example Scattergories where each player has to think as fast as they can to correctly name an object in given set of categories that all start with a certain letter. Knowing you have to think fast creates pressure sure, but it also creates a lot of excitement and fun.
What about video games? Many force us to make decisions, take actions, revise strategies and the like much faster than we do in normal life. They create a mental rush of positive affect.
The idea of mental motion (speed of thought + degree of variation of thought) should be applicable to improving meetings, innovation sessions and project tasks (time box) in the workplace. I found one consultant that appears to specialize in SpeedThinking applications in the workplace.
Speed up and diversify my thoughts, elevate my mood and give me more mental energy (Gee just like an iPod). Designs that can do that will earn a wide following.
