ABSTRACT
Purpose>The COVID-19 outbreak has undoubtedly affected overall mental health. Thus, researching resilience is important, as it has been previously discussed as a means to protect people from mental health problems. This study aims to clarify whether survivors of a traumatic event (i.e. cancer survivors) are more resilient to living through another traumatic experience, such as COVID-19, compared to those who have never had such an experience. The study also examines the role of emotional creativity in this process.Design/methodology/approach>A quantitative research design was adopted. The data collection was performed through a survey (N = 338), which was conducted among two separate groups of participants. The first group (N = 152) included the survivors of a traumatic event (i.e. cancer survivors), and the second group (N = 186) included those who did not have such an experience.Findings>The results demonstrate that living through a traumatic experience results in a higher level of resilience during another traumatic experience (i.e. COVID-19), which is the result of higher post-traumatic growth. Moreover, emotional creativity is discussed as an explanatory variable that explains a significantly higher level of post-traumatic growth among survivors of a traumatic event.Originality/value>This research offers a better understanding of the effect of living through a traumatic event on post-traumatic growth and resilience in living through another traumatic experience. Moreover, post-traumatic growth is explained through emotional creativity improvement, which happens after experiencing a traumatic life event.
ABSTRACT
Emotional creativity (EC) refers to cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that the COVID-19 epidemic and the restrictions imposed increased the levels of negative emotions, which obstructed adaptation. This research suggests that EC predicts the motivation for innovative adaptive behavior under the restrictions of COVID-19. In the case study of university professors, we show that EC predicts the motivation to creatively capitalize on the imposed online teaching in looking for innovative research and personal development. Methodologically, we rely on the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI) administered to a sample of 463 university professors (41.5% men, aged 22-100. M ± SD = 45.53 ± 11.46, median 44) from the Czech Republic (N = 137), Slovak Republic (N = 61), and Russia (N = 265). The indicators for motivation for innovative performance included motivations to use distant methods of scientific research, to look for partners for conducting scientific research in other cities or abroad, to conduct interdisciplinary research, starting distance learning to enhance qualifications, and the perception that due to online teaching, there is more time for personal development. We employ a set of ordinal regression analyses controlling for age, gender, position (lecturer, researcher, and manager), type of science (formal, natural, social, and applied), and country. The results suggest that Emotional Creativity and its three components predict the motivation of university professors to creatively capitalize on the imposed online teaching in looking for innovative research and personal development under the conditions of COVID-19. Furthermore, our results confirmed the gender and age differences in EC. The differences in EC according to position (lecturer, researcher, and manager) and type of science were not statistically significant. These results compel us to be aware of the importance of the emotional side of creativity to optimize stress-related behavior under the conditions of limited abilities to continue as usual. More space devoted to the manifestation of all the aspects of emotional creativity would improve adaptation to challenging circumstances and even allow one to capitalize on new opportunities. Moreover, we suggest that if personal intrinsic Emotional Creativity is high, the crises, such as the COVID-19 epidemic, may improve adaptation and trigger creative outcomes.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought severe impact on language learners' emotional states and their performance in creativity. Yet, their ability to regulate emotions is crucial for everyday functioning during times of crisis. The question of how adaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies, which help an individual maintain appropriate and stable mood states, might affect bilinguals' creativity remains unexplored. The present study investigated this issue by measuring various indicators of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, L2 proficiency, adaptive ER strategies, and bilinguals' cognitive creativity (CC) and emotional creativity (EC) during the pandemic. Results from a sample of 235 bilingual participants who completed a battery of survey instruments showed that: (1) bilinguals' negative mood significantly increased during the pandemic compared with their mood state before the pandemic; (2) their negative mood during the pandemic was positively associated with their adaptive ER strategies; (3) L2 proficiency had a direct effect on bilinguals' cognitive flexibility, CC, and EC; (4) L2 proficiency also indirectly influenced bilinguals' CC through cognitive flexibility. These results suggest that cognitive flexibility had a simple mediation effect on the association between L2 proficiency and CC. However, the current study further found that bilinguals had different cognitive patterns in EC. L2 proficiency influenced bilinguals' EC through cognitive flexibility indirectly only when adaptive ER strategies had a moderation effect on the association between cognitive flexibility and EC. However, this moderated mediation effect was not significant in CC. The current study implies that bilinguals' adaptive ER strategies played a distinct role in bilinguals' EC during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Emotional creativity refers to a set of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that emotional creativity can positively predict posttraumatic growth and mental health. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed great challenges to people's daily lives and their mental health status. Therefore, this study aims to address the following two questions: whether emotional creativity can improve posttraumatic growth and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it works. To do this, a multiple mediation model has been proposed, which supposes that emotional creativity is associated with posttraumatic growth and mental health through perceived social support and regulatory emotional self-efficacy. The study involved 423 participants from multiple regions with different COVID-19 involvement levels. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire with six parts, which included Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI), Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RES), Stress-Related Growth Scale-Short Form (SRGS-SF), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support scale (MSPSS), Brief Symptom Inventory-18 scale (BSI-18), and COVID-19-related life events questionnaire. Path analysis used to examine the mediation model indicated that under the control of COVID-19-related life events and age, perceived social support mediated a positive association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth as well as a negative association between emotional creativity and all mental health problems, including somatization, depression, and anxiety. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy mediates the association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth, emotional creativity and anxiety, and emotional creativity and depression. The results suggest that emotional creativity plays an important role in coping with stressful events related to COVID-19. Furthermore, these results might provide a better understanding of the possible paths through which emotional creativity is related to psychological outcomes, such as mental health and posttraumatic growth.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 epidemic is associated with negative mood, which has the potential to be a powerful driver of creativity. However, the influence of negative mood on cognitive creativity and emotional creativity remains elusive. Previous research has indicated that self-focused attention is likely to be related to both negative mood and creativity. The current study introduced two self-focused attention variables (i.e., rumination, reflection) to explore how negative mood might contribute to cognitive creativity and emotional creativity. Based on a sample of 351 participants, our study found that (1) negative mood during the outbreak of COVID-19 was associated with cognitive creativity and emotional creativity. Meanwhile, there were significant serial mediation effects of rumination and reflection in the relationship between negative mood and creativity and (2) the psychological impact after exposure to the COVID-19 epidemic was positively correlated with emotional creativity but not with cognitive creativity. These results suggested that individuals, in real life and work, could achieve better creative performance through moderate self-focus. Moreover, individuals with different mood states can be induced to enhance their creativity in times of crisis through intervention training to promote reflection.