Experiencing emotions in design thinking: How positive and negative affects play their part in the innovation process

Emotions have been recently recognized to have a significant impact on the innovation process and its outcomes. However, little is known regarding how teams are experiencing distinct emotions throughout the varying stages of the innovation process. This study analyzes design thinking teams' self-reported emotional states and explores the emotional spectrum associated with various innovation activities. The Geneva Emotion Wheel instrument is used to map relations between 20 emotions and nine generic innovation activities that occurred during a two-week project.