Volume 7 (2020): Issue 2 (December 2020)

The main objective was to study creative processes in isolation by COVID-19. We analyzed, from the participants’ perspective, activities, emotions, and motivations linked to everyday creativity in quarantine. The study was carried out between March 27 and April 12, 2020, in Argentina, during Social and Preventive Isolation by COVID-19. The sample included 302 men and women who lived in different provinces in Argentina: Córdoba, Buenos Aires, San Luis, La Pampa, and San Juan. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 77 years. All participants answered an online questionnaire with open-ended questions. We analyzed textual data, images, and videos with ATLAS.TI8. From qualitative analyses, we elaborated four categories: With things we had at home: creative activities in isolation; Alone, but not so alone; Being and feeling in isolation; Creativity, motivations, and quarantine. The results indicated that most participants carried out various creative activities in quarantine. These activities generated positive emotions and allowed to face negative emotions related to the pandemic. The motivations had been varied, although reasons related to enjoyment, coping, and sharing with other people are predominant. Apparent paradoxes arise from the analysis of everyday creativity in the time of COVID-19. The knowledge produced in the study can contribute to formulate psychological interventions and public health policies during a pandemic.

After more than six decades of systematic study of creativity, there is still no agreement regarding components essential to define creativity. Prior studies of implicit and explicit theories have suggested adding criteria to the standard definition of what creativity is; however, an alternative approach is to explore what creativity is not. The current investigation aimed to study both perspectives. The social validation method was employed in Study 1 (an open-ended questionnaire) to identify laypeople’s notions of creativity using content analysis of participant responses (n = 92). Results from Study 1 were used to build a quantitative questionnaire employed in Study 2 (n = 306). Descriptive statistics and Spearman Rank Correlations were used to analyze participant ratings in Study 2, showing consistent agreement that creativity is highly related to and overlapped with Imagination, Artistic Expression, Innovation, Originality, and Invention, while Knowledge, Ability, Unconventional Behavior, Morality, and Insanity were less related to and overlapped with creativity. Both implicit and explicit theories agreed on Originality and Innovation and disagreed on Artistic Expression, Imagination, and Invention. Usefulness received low ratings, although it is considered in all creativity definitions. Morality was not rated to be closely associated with creativity. Detailed findings are discussed with suggestions for future studies.

This paper examines the effectiveness of a 10-hour cognitive-based creativity training on idea generation and idea evaluation among 51 undergraduate students (mean age 22) from a large university in the Netherlands. A pre-post-test within-subject design was conducted. All 51 students received the training as part of their bachelor program, and were assigned to receive the training in the first or second semester. As such, students participated in both experimental conditions (control and intervention), albeit at different times (within-subject design). The Alternative Uses Task (AUT) and specially designed idea evaluation tasks were used before and after the training. In the idea evaluation task, students were asked to evaluate ideas on their originality and feasibility. Their ratings were compared with content experts’ ratings. General Linear Models (GLM) for repeated measures were conducted to determine whether any change in idea generation and idea evaluation is the result of the interaction between type of treatment (i.e. intervention or control group) and time (pre- and post-test). The results indicated that students did not generate significantly more (i.e. fluency) and different kind of ideas (i.e. flexibility) after training. Most importantly, in line with recent research, the results suggested that training does not impact idea evaluation skills among students. This suggests that idea evaluation might be a more complex process to enhance than idea generation. The implications of these results for educational practice and future research are discussed.

If the importance of social psychological factors in creativity has been widely emphasized, research across the social sciences mainly focused on identifying contextual factors that increase or decrease individuals’ creative behaviors. Few studies have investigated the relationships between creativity and individual characteristics related to interpersonal and social interactions. The present contribution aimed to consider such characteristics, namely social risk-taking (i.e., willingness to challenge norms) and fear of negative evaluation (i.e., apprehension about receiving negative judgments of others). Two correlational studies were therefore implemented in order to clarify previous research suggesting that creativity would be positively associated with social risk-taking and to extend them by testing potential associations between creativity and fear of negative evaluation. Using self-ratings of creativity, but also creative self-beliefs and creative achievement, we hypothesized that creativity would correlate positively with social risk likelihood and negatively with fear of negative evaluation. As predicted, and replicating previous results, all our measures of creativity correlated positively with social risk-taking. Our results also consistently highlighted a negative association between beliefs in one’s creative capacities (creative self-efficacy) and one’s level of fear of negative evaluation. These findings corroborate the idea according to which creative individuals would be (social) risk-takers. In addition, individuals who are confident in their ability to generate creative productions would be less afraid of negative judgments from others. Several perspectives are proposed, in particular in terms of the intervention designed in order to enhance individuals’ creativity.

Based on recent findings that highlight the strong links between creativity and interculturality, we will attempt to establish a relationship between intercultural experiences and creativity within the context of international university exchanges in order to propose specific courses of action for improving these skills. The methodology used is based on a quasi-experimental design for a sample of 303 university students from a Spanish university. Data were obtained from a survey that measured creativity with two different instruments (RIBS-s and Divergent Thinking), English proficiency, and intercultural experiences abroad. Results show a strong relationship between creativity and intercultural experiences, suggesting that those students who lived abroad and in a higher number of foreign countries are more creative. Additionally, the most significant differences appear when we establish a comparison between those students who have not lived abroad and those who have done so in more countries, which contributes to highlighting the close relationship between interculturality and creativity. Of special significance is the strong link found between English proficiency and having experiences abroad, suggesting that when the level of a shared international language, English in this case, is higher, there will be more options to increase students’ creativity. Likewise, students who have a higher level of English are more creative. Designing programs for higher education students that combine and integrate foreign language skills, creativity, and interculturality appear to be essential. Thanks to foreign language skills, students will be in a better position to acquire intercultural sensitivity and improve their creativity, making their international experience a valued source of fulfilment both for their personal life and their career.

Psychology usually treats the creative act as both novel and adapted, a definition that can embrace the social and the cultural features of creativity. Allied to the need for social bonding and the promise of self-realization, available technological resources have enabled valuable social networks. However, social isolation caused by the COVID-19 crisis has reduced outdoor and collective personal experiences usually shared on Facebook, encouraging some users to re-publish past events. Considering that posting is potentially a creative act, hence both new and adapted, may this action now equally become old and adapted? To illustrate the question, a set of 293 posts made by twelve Brazilians with mean age of 49.7 years (SD 7.34) were collected from May 25th to June 8th, 51 of them being re-posts. The authors were inter-viewed about their use of Facebook, relation to others, and first re-posts published in the period. Thematic dialogical analysis was applied to the content of the interviews and led to finding new meanings about old posts. Despite a small sample (n = 12) and the fact that 56.1% of Facebook users in Brazil are under 35 years old, the analysis of the phenomenon can shed new light on problematization of the notion of creativity by reflecting on its role in regulation of human emotions during the COVID-19 crisis, through the action of posting legacy experience on Facebook.

In empirical art psychology and creativity research most studies focus on the psychological correlates of art. Only few go beyond treating artworks as categorical data (e.g. abstract vs. representational) and consider artworks in detail. In part this is due to the lack of reliable quantitative measurements. The rating instrument for two-dimensional pictorial works (RizbA) makes a difference to current research designs. The current study validates the questionnaire on a representative sample of contemporary visual art, consisting of 318 images depicting works by artists from different cultural areas dated to the 21st century. In a randomized test-retest design, the pictorial material was rated by 506 (T1) and 238 (T2) art experts using RizbA. Statistical quality criteria, such as item difficulty, capacity of differentiation, test-retest reliability, and intraclass correlation were calculated. Principal component analysis (PCA) and indices of factor similarity were computed. The overall test’s capacity for differentiation yields partial eta-squared of .31 (T1) and .40 (T2). Test-retest reliability is .86. PCA reveals an eight-factor solution, which is largely consistent across both measurement points. Tucker’s coefficient of congruence ranges between |.71| and |1.00|. Intraclass correlation coefficients are .86 (T1) and .73 (T2). This study indicates generalizability of the questionnaire to contemporary artworks. Although a conclusion on the factors’ structure cannot be drawn yet, results are very promising. As the first reliable quantitative tool for formal picture analysis, RizbA allows more detailedexamination of visual art and its psychological correlates. This broadens research methodology by giving art greater weight in art psychology and creativity research.

The art of bodypainting that is fairly unknown to a wider public turns the body into a canvas - it is a frequently used phrase in the field of bodypainting that illustrates the challenge it faces: it uses a three-dimensional surface and has to cope with its irregularities, but also with the model’s abilities and characteristics. This paper looks at individuals who are turned into art by bodypainting. Although body painting can be very challenging for them - they have to expose their bodies and to stand still for a long time while getting transformed - models report that they enjoy both the process and the result, even if they are not confident about their own bodies. Among the reasons there are physical aspects like the sensual enjoyment, but also the feeling of being part of something artistic. This is enhanced and preserved through double staging - becoming a threedimentional work of art and then being staged for photography or film clips. This process gives the model the chance to experience their own body in a detached way. On the one hand, bodypainting closely relates to the body and on the other hand, it can help to over-come the body.

In the interview with Mark Runco, one of most prolific creativity researchers, we discuss his career, main areas of research interest, chosen research methods and share his thoughts about the future of research on creativity and effectiveness in scientific work.