Mixing Memory Blog gave me todays inspiration. The paper cited is by Emily Pronin and Dan Wegner and titled »Manic Thinking: Independent Effects of Thought Speed and Thought Content on Mood«

All of us I think have experienced the hype feelings in group sessions that are meant to let thoughts flow freely and the tightly connected phenomenon of the permanent threat to mistake this euphoria or mania for brilliancy of output. Thoughts pour out, words slip away through our mouth so fast that the emerging speed gives us the impression to be productive and really good.

Later in the day when tiredness takes over, the flow converts into congestion, first doubts arise… some of us are even prone to fall into depressive moods at htis time of the day. The next morning, we are totally sober, back to normal reconsidering starts. Everything needs to be thought through again. It is not the case that all of it was useless hybris but some of it, yes, definitely. But this is how the process goes or has to go.

Pronin and Wegner note that the psychiatric illness, mania, is
associated with both increased thought speed and elevated mood, along
with delusions of grandeur, and the feeling of heightened creativity
and inspiration. However, the effect of thought speed has not been
studied independent of clinical mania. To explore this relationship,
they had college undergrads read out loud a series of emotion-inducing
statements (58 in all) in at either a fast or slow pace.

After reading all 58 statements, participants were asked to answer a
series of questions designed to assess their mood, energy level,
feelings of power, creativity and inspiration, and "grandiosity or
inflated self-esteem," along with their own perceptions of their speed
of thought.
Consistent with the
hypothesis that faster thought speeds affected mood and mania-related
feelings, participants in the fast thought condition reported being
happier, had higher energy levels, experienced greater senses of power
and creativity, and higher levels of grandiosity (though self-esteem
did not differ between conditions). Furthermore, these effects were
independent of the mood manipulation (positive or negative statements).

Thinking fast produces effects on mood and
self-view similar to those of clinical mania. Of course, nothing in
these results says that thinking faster doesn’t actually lead to more
creativity and inspiration. It might be that the process of fast thinking can induce the delusion of turning a
bad idea into a good one.
Those of you who have been on illiegal drugs once in while, know how easy an excitatory state of mind can change your self-esteem and self-evaluation. The implications are clear. It’s
important, when you’re dealing with something important, to slow down
now and then (and cut off the supply of coffee other stimulants) in order to be able to
soberly evaluate the ideas your are producing. Otherwise, you might end
up a world of self-delusions

¹Pronin, E., & Wegner, D. M. (2006). Manic thinking: Independent effects of thought speed and thought content on mood. Psychological Science, 17(9), 807-813.

The
statements, which have been used to manipulate mood for a few decades,
start out emotionally neutral, and then become more and more
emotionally positive or more and more emotionally negative. The idea is
that reading a series of progressively more positive or negative
statements will affect the reader’s mood accordingly. The letters in
the statements were presented one at a time, either for 40ms per letter
(fast thinking condition) or 170 ms per letter (slow thinking)*.

*A pilot
study indicated that the 40ms per letter reading time was about twice
the normal reading speed for college undergrads, with 170 ms being
about half the normal speed. The time between statements also varied,
with only 320 ms between statements in the fast condition, and 4
seconds between statements in the slow condition.