Creativity and purpose in life
RESEARCH BRIEF
Creativity refers to the ability to produce original or unusual ideas or to make something new or imaginative. Beyond artistic activities and expressions, creativity takes many forms such as fashioning beautiful spaces (home, office, garden); planning a party or special meal; crafting innovative solutions to work problems; curating a wardrobe that makes a personal statement. Creativity infuses anything we might choose to do with our own take or flair. Christine Valters Paintner reminds us that, ...“the primary creative act is the living of our daily lives, making of it, a work of art” (2011, p. 16), which is to say that all of us have the opportunity to be creative.
Research question: Does engaging in creative activities contribute to meaning and purpose in life?
How researchers studied this question: Han and colleagues (2023) investigated the relationship between creativity, self-efficacy (confidence in one’s competence to handle new situations), positive affect (feeling enthusiastic, active, alert), and meaning/purpose in life. They administered 4 standardized questionnaires to 359 students related to each of these constructs. First, they examined the correlation between the 4 constructs; that is, the strength and/or direction of their relationships. Then they used a statistical technique to create a larger sample size for their regression analyses in order to see if self-efficacy and positive affect contributed to the influence of creativity on meaning/purpose in life.
Answer: Yes, engaging in creative pursuits increases our sense of meaning/purpose in life. Creativity is positively correlated with self-efficacy, positive affect, meaning/purpose in life, which means that elevation in one construct is associated with elevation in the others. Investigators determined that the 4 constructs likely interact in this way: Engaging in a creative activity reminds us that we are competent (self-efficacy) and we feel good about that (positive affect), which helps us experience our lives as having purpose and meaning.
So What? Engaging in something creative contributes to our sense of meaning and purpose in life and so it makes sense that we should identify our favorite creative outlets and actually do them! If you need some guidance on living with creativity, I strongly recommend you read (or listen to) Elizabeth Gilbert’s delightful book entitled, “Big Magic”. (See a brief description of the book under the Inspirations tab of this site.)
How about you? What are your favorite creative outlets? What creative act might you invest in today or this week?
Onward!
Sources:
Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/creativity
Accessed 6-10-2023
Gilbert E (2015). Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Riverhead Books, New York.
Han J, Wang Y, Qian J, Shi M (2023). Delving into the role of creativity on meaning in life: A multiple mediation model. Heliyon, 9 (6), e16566. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16566.
Abstract and full paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10238719/
Paintner CV (2011). The Artist’s Rule. Sorin Books, Notre Dame, Indiana.