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2 - Affect, Complexity, and the Case Study Method

from Part I - Methods in the Study of Creativity and Emotions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

By
Michael Hanchett Hanson ,
Joseph I. Eisman  and
Jennifer Ruth Hoyden
Edited by
Zorana Ivcevic ,
Jessica D. Hoffmann  and
James C. Kaufman
Zorana Ivcevic
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jessica D. Hoffmann
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Summary

Case study method is a crucial research tool that works in dialogue with other methodologies to identify the real-world challenges of creative work. Whereas most psychological methodologies isolate variables or measure their relative importance in predicting what is likely to happen across a population, case studies attempt to understand the systemic complexity of specific instances, describing how things can happen in order to consider why. Cases can elaborate on findings from other research, offer caveats to those findings, or raise new research questions. Affect, an important topic that both draws on researchers’ insights and tests their perspectives, exemplifies the data that case work is adept at recognizing and can offer to such a dialogue. This chapter discusses how case research can examine affect and provides examples from research on creative work using the evolving systems and participatory framework approaches. Five guiding questions are provided to help researchers integrate analyses of affect into case studies and situate those findings in relation to other research. These questions address the researcher’s philosophical stance, the possibilities and limits of a given case, the functions of affect within the case, patterns in affective systems, and the potential for both insight and bias.

Keywords

affectcase studiescreativityemotionevolving systemsparticipatory creativity framework
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotions , pp. 30 - 46
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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