Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

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Hinojosa JA, Fernandez-Folgueiras U, Albert J, Santaniello G, Pozo MA, Capilla A. Negative induced mood influences word production: An event-related potentials study with a covert picture naming task. Neuropsychologia. 2017; 95: 227–39. pmid:28025016 Emotion does three things, I think. The first is that it is – of course – the story behind some of the most iconic marketing campaigns of the last thirty years. If you know your Nike campaigns then you are in for a treat; if you don’t know them, well, you will find yourself looking them up. You get a sense of the thinking and the passion that goes in to innovation and creativity. Hoffman says that he is trying to provide a playbook that can be replicated elsewhere. But most of us do not have the reach or the budgets of Nike. Necessity is the mother of invention, no doubt, but examples of scrappy creativity would have been most welcome. Oddly, an anecdote that came particularly alive involved Steve Jobs – Apple is hardly strapped for cash either – but the story related to Jobs’ attention to detail rather than the kind of creativity that is available when money is no object. And the tale of Hoffman’s early career is compelling. Controlled mood induction enables us to better know, understand and manage our emotions. For this reason, much effort has been made in emotion research to create systems that artificially elicit emotional changes. Numerous Mood Induction Procedures (MIPs) have been developed to generate positive, negative and neutral mood states (see [ 4, 5] for a revision, [ 6]). Some procedures use autobiographical information, such as autobiographical memories [ 7, 8], while other procedures use written texts, such as Velten MIP [ 9] and the reading of fragments of books [ 10]. A number of procedures use acoustic stimuli, such as imagination MIPs e.g., [ 11, 12], the International Affective Digitized Sound System (IADS [ 13]) and music MIPs (e.g., [ 14]). Pictures are used in others procedures, such as the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS [ 15]). Procedures have also been implemented involving the manipulation of the expression, thought or behavior of the participants, for example, the Facial Action Coding System FACS [ 16] and social interaction of success or failure [ 17, 18]. Finally, audiovisual materials, such as virtual reality [ 19, 20] and films [ 21], have been utilized in certain procedures. Subjective terms used in affective neuroscience include emotions, moods, feelings, affects and drives. Although emotion has long been studied, it bears no single definition. A review of 92 putative definitions and nine skeptical statements ( Kleinginna and Kleinginna, 1981) suggests a definition with a rather broad consensus: Hochschild, Arlie Russel (1998): The Sociology of Emotion as a Way of Seeing. In: Gillian Bendelow/ Simon J. Williams (Hrsg.), Emotions in Social Life. Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues. London: Routledge, S. 3–15.

Koval P, Pe ML, Meers K, Kuppens P. Affect dynamics in relation to depressive symptoms: variable, unstable or inert? Emotion. 2013; 13: 1132–41. pmid:23914765 While not a popular choice in web design, brown can, under the right circumstances, be effective. As a colour associated with the earth and trees, brown can add an outdoorsy feel, maximised by a pairing with green. The tree connotations also give a sturdy and reliable feeling.Lohr, Karin (2003): Subjektivierung von Arbeit. Ausgangspunkt einer Neuorientierung der Industrie-und Arbeitssoziologie? In: Berliner Journal für Soziologie 13, S. 511–529. Samson AC, Kreibig SD, Soderstrom B, Wade AA, Gross JJ. Eliciting positive, negative and mixed emotional states: A film library for affective scientists. Cogn Emot. 2016; 30: 827–56. pmid:25929696

Zillmann D. Transfer of excitation in emotional behavior. In Cacioppo JT, Petty RE, editors. Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook. New York: Guilford; 1983. p. 215–240. This adds a layer of information that is otherwise difficult to get at,” said Colin Ellard, who researches the psychological impact of design at the University of Waterloo in Canada. “When we ask people about their stress they say it’s no big deal, yet when we measure their physiology we discover that their responses are off the charts. The difficulty is that your physiological state is the one that impacts your health.” Taking a closer look at these physiological states could shed light on how city design affects our bodies. How did we last feel when using a particular product? If a product possesses qualities similar to an object we have used previously, it might evoke some of the emotions and thoughts aroused at the time. Reflective processing takes place when we access things in long-term memory to make value judgments. By reflecting on past experiences and relating these to the products we are using, everyday things are incorporated into our overall experience of the world—and they become as much a part of our memories as what we are doing, who we are with, and where we are. Many products are now even part of the memory-forming experience; cameras, iPhones, computers—all of these things help us mark occasions and collect mementoes, and they provide us with a permanent record of our activities. He went further to propose seven primary emotional systems/prototype emotional states, namely SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY that represent basic foundations for living and learning. Charles ST. Strength and vulnerability integration: a model of emotional well-being across adulthood. Psychol Bull. 2010; 136: 1068–91. pmid:21038939Below is a list of reflective operations which influence the decisions we make and the emotional attachments we form with the things in our environment: Active maintenance of valence information in WM with increased WM-related activity in response to positive emotion (specifically in the right DLPFC) which leads to PFC-mediated cognitive functions in WM (i.e., increased cognitive flexibility and problem solving) ( Ashby and Isen, 1999).

Frazier TW, Strauss ME, Steinhauer SR. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of emotional response in young adults. Psychiophysiology. 2004; 41: 75–83. pmid:14693002 Biostat. Comprehensive meta-analysis [computer software]. Retrieved from http://www.meta-analysis.com 2005 Studies in psychology ( Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999) and neuroscience ( Dolcos et al., 2011) proposed that cognition and emotion processes are operated at two separate but interacting systems: (i) the “cool cognitive system” is hippocampus-based that is associated with emotionally neutral cognitive functions as well as cognitive controls; and (ii) the “hot emotional system” is amygdala-based that responsible for emotional processing and responses toward unconditioned emotional stimuli such as appetitive and fear-evoking conditions. In addition, an early view of a dorsal/ventral stream distinction was commonly reported between both systems. The dorsal stream encompasses the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and lateral parietal cortex, which are involved in the cool system for active maintenance of controlled processes such as cognitive performance and the pursuit of goal-relevant information in working memory (WM) amidst interference. In contrast, the hot system involves the ventral neural system, including the amygdala, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as well as orbitofrontal (OFC) and occipito-temporal cortex (OTC), all of which encompass emotional processing systems ( Dolcos et al., 2011). Nonetheless, recent investigations claim that distinct cognitive and emotional neural systems are not separated but are deeply integrated and contain evidence of mediation and modulation ( Dolcos et al., 2011; Okon-Singer et al., 2015). Consequently, emotions are now thought to influence the formation of a hippocampal-dependent memory system ( Pessoa, 2008), exerting a long-term impact on learning and memory. In other words, although cognitive and affective processes can be independently conceptualized, it is not surprising that emotions powerfully modify cognitive appraisals and memory processes and vice versa. The innate emotional systems interact with higher brain systems and probably no an emotional state that is free of cognitive ramifications. If cortical functions were evolutionarily built upon the pre-existing subcortical foundations, it provides behavioral flexibility ( Panksepp, 1998). Ehrenberg, Alain (2004): Das erschöpfte Selbst. Depression und Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus. In their work titled “The role of affect and proto-affect in effective functioning” (2004), researchers and prominent usability experts Don Norman, Andrew Ortony, and William Revelle paved the way towards one of the most well-known approaches to emotion and design. Their three-level model of emotional design offers a new perspective when assessing and considering the design process. Norman et al.'s model emphasizes the importance of emotion to the user experience—taking the less well-trodden route of focusing on how the user feels when interacting with a product, as opposed to the usability considerations, which tend to dominate our thinking. Each of the layers of this model refers to a particular type of processing, and for each of these tiers or levels there is a corresponding area of design. Here, we shall concentrate on the highest tier of the emotional design model: reflective processing.

Westermann R, Spies K, Stahl G, Hesse FW. Relative effectiveness and validity of mood induction procedures: A meta-analysis. Eur J Soc Psychol. 1996; 26: 557–80. Funding: This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness/FEDER under TIN2013-47074-C2-1-R and DPI2016-80894-R grants. Lighter shades of purple – especially lavender – bring to mind spring and romance. Darker shades add more mystery, and can even symbolise creativity. Darkening the shade will also turn the romantic elements more sensual.

Hochschild, Arlie Russel (1990): Das gekaufte Herz. Zur Kommerzialisierung der Gefühle. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus. We examined the publication bias for negative valence, finding none, with Egger’s test ( p = -.281) yielding a statistically non-significant result. However, Egger’s test ( p = .026) was statistically significant, suggesting the presence of a publication bias for positive valence. Pongratz, Hans J. (2004): Subordination. Inszenierungsformen von Personalführung in Deutschland seit 1933. München/Mering: Rainer Hampp. Lench HC, Flores SA, Bench SW. Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: A meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations. Psychol Bull. 2011; 137: 834–55. pmid:21766999Higher cognitive functions operate within the cortical regions, including the frontal cortex for awareness and consciousness functions such as thinking, planning, emotional regulation and free-will (intention-to-act), which mediate emotional feelings. Hence, cognition is an extension of emotion (just as emotion is an extension of homeostasis aforementioned). Tertiary processes are continually integrated with the secondary processes and reach a mature level (higher brain functions) to better anticipating key survival issues, thus yielding cognitive control of emotion via “top-down” regulation. In other words, brain-mind evolution enables human to reason but also regulate our emotions.