POSITIVE AFFECT IMPROVES CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING AND INFLUENCES REPORTED SOURCE OF PRACTICE SATISFACTION IN PHYSICIANS

A study investigated whether creative problem solving and reported sou rces of satisfaction from the practice of medicine are influenced by t he induction of positive affect among physicians. Physicians randomly assigned to the positive affect group received a small package of cand y. The control group received no treatment. The affect group scored be tter on the creativity measure than did the control group, (p = 0.028, one-tailed). Regarding practice satisfaction, all physicians perceive d humanism as more important than extrinsic motivation as a source of satisfaction from the practice of medicine (p < 0.001). However, a sig nificant interaction between affect and source of satisfaction reveale d that the affect group attributed more relative importance to humanis m and less relative importance to extrinsic motivation compared with t he control group (p = 0.04). In contrast, physicians in a third condit ion, in which they read phrases reflective of the humanistic satisfact ions from medicine, did not differ from the control group in the creat ivity test or in the practice-satisfaction questionnaire. We conclude that induction of positive affect among physicians can improve their c reative problem solving and cart influence the sources of practice sat isfaction they report.