Emotional creativity and real-life involvement in different types of creative leisure activities

The role of emotional creativity in practicing creative leisure activities and in the preference of college majors remains unknown. The present study aims to explore how emotional creativity measured by the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI; Averill, 1999) is interrelated with the real-life involvement in different types of specific creative leisure activities and with four categories of college majors. Data were collected from 251 university students, university graduates and young adults (156 women and 95 men). Art students and graduates scored significantly higher on the ECI than other majors. Humanities scored significantly higher than technical/economic majors. Five creative leisure activities were significantly correlated with the ECI, specifically, writing, painting, composing music, performing drama, and do-it-yourself home improvement. Keywords: Creativity, Emotional Creativity, Emotions, Creativeness, Affect, Feelings, Leisure Activities, Creative Ability, Artistic Creativity, Creative Thinking, Creativeness, Aging, Cognitive Deficits, Performance. MeSH Headings: Emotions, Creativity, Leisure, Leisure Activities, Hobbies, Recreation, Affect Affective Symptoms, Creativenes

Creativity, emergence of novelty, and spontaneous symmetry breaking

The philosophy of mind concerns much about how novelty occurs in the world. The very recent progress in this field inspired by quantum mechanics indicates that symmetry restoration occurs in the mind at the moment when new creative thought arises. Symmetry restoration denotes the moment when one’s cognition leaves ordinary internalized mental schemes such as conceptual categories, heuristics, subjective theories, conventional thinking, or expectations. At this moment, fundamentally new, original thought may arise. We also predict that in older age, symmetry restoration is less likely to occur as internalized mental schemes become more rigid in the elderly. Furthermore, the present study demonstrates that symmetry restoration may occur not only individually, in one’s mind, but also collectively, during collaborative creative activities, e.g. during small-group brainstorming sessions or creative improvisational performances. The possibility of collective symmetry restoration interacts well with the ideas in the field of relational ontology. Relational ontology highlights an important ontological role of relations. The ontological primacy is not given to individual entities, as in traditional metaphysics, but to relational structures and transformative relational processes (interactions). When accepting this assumption, we cannot imagine the situation when the actor’s mind could act absolutely independently and leave all of its relations as assumed in the compatibilist theory of free will. We argue that creative free action can be performed even in the case when the actor is entangled within their material, environmental, and social relational structures

Emotional Creativity: A Meta-analysis and Integrative Review

Emotional creativity (EC) is a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. EC has been found to be related to various constructs across different fields of psychology during the past 30 years, but a comprehensive examination of previous research is still lacking. The goal of this review is to explore the reliability of use of the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI) across studies, to test gender differences and to compare levels of EC in different countries. Thirty-five empirical studies focused on EC were retrieved and the coefficients required for the meta-analysis extracted. The meta-analysis revealed that women showed significantly higher EC than men (total N = 3,555). The same gender differences were also found when testing scores from three ECI subscales, i.e. emotional novelty, emotional preparedness and emotional effectiveness/authenticity. When comparing EC in 10 different countries (total N = 4,375), several cross-cultural differences were revealed. The Chinese sample showed a significantly lower average ECI total score than all the other countries. Based on the integration of results, the avenues for future research on EC and the breadth of influence of the concept of EC across different fields of psychology are discussed. Keywords: Emotional Creativity, Review, Meta-Analyses, Meta-Analysis, Definition, Emotional Creativity Inventory, ECI, Reliability, Gender Differences, Cross-cultural, Cross-culture, Personality Traits, NEO Personality Inventory, Big Five, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Introversion, Neuroticism, Emotions, Creativity, Cognition, Cognitive Abilities, Affect, Fantasy, Coping, Alexithymia, Anhedonia, Self-understanding, Motivation, Creativeness, Innovative Performance, Creative Ability, Artistic Creativity, Creative Thinking. MeSH Headings: Emotions, Creativity, Affect, Affective Symptoms, Gender, Sex, Gender Identity, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Transcultural Studies, Temperament, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Anhedonia, Creativeness, Cognition, Cognitive Function, Artistic Creativity, Creative Ability, Creative Thinkin

Free associations mirroring self- and world-related concepts: Implications for personal construct theory, psycholinguistics and philosophical psychology

People construe reality by using words as basic units of meaningful categorization. The present theory-driven study applied the method of a free association task to explore how people express the concepts of the world and the self in words. The respondents were asked to recall any five words relating with the word world. Afterwards they were asked to recall any five words relating with the word self. The method of free association provided the respondents with absolute freedom to choose any words they wanted. Such free recall task is suggested as being a relatively direct approach to the respondents’ self- and world-related conceptual categories, without enormous rational processing. The results provide us, first, with associative ranges for constructs of the world and the self, where some associative dimensions are defined by semantic polarities in the meanings of peripheral categories (e.g., Nature vs. Culture). Second, our analysis showed that some groups of verbal categories that were associated with the words world and self are central, while others are peripheral with respect to the central position. Third, the analysis of category networks revealed that some categories play the role of a transmitter, mediating the pathway between other categories in the network

The city as a home. A culturological approach to global problems

The thesi s enti tled The Ci ty a s a Home: A Cul turological Approach to Global Problems (Město jako domov: Kulturologický přistup ke globálním problémům) deals wi th the topical issue of the impact of globalization processes. Globalization is understood as a process of socio-cultural change. Attention is devoted to ci ti es in particular, because they represent in concentrated form the majority of the processes of sociocul tural changes, which at the same time consti tute the ma in global problems of the present day. The problematic nature of a study of globalization processes consists of the difficulty of grasping this complex development, which goes beyond the boundaries of individual social-science disciplines. Nevertheless, each particular academic perspecti ve observes in i ts own area of interest an entire spectrum of repercussions ensuing from globalization proces ses. Consequently, the thing that i s being moni tored i s the establishment of an interdisciplinary approach in the study of the city wi thin the ambit of the so-called Chicago School, whereby sociology implemented the methods of scientific ecology and an approach known as human ecology subsequently emerged, which synthesizes the knowledge of social science and reflects the localized nature and direct integration of soci o-cul tural...Disertační práce s názvem Město jako domov: Kulturologický přístup ke globálním problémům zpracovává aktuální problematiku dopadů procesů globalizace, která je poj a ta jako proces sociokulturní změny. Pozornost je věnována právě městům, protože ta reprezentují v koncentrované podobě většinu aktuálních procesů sociokulturních změn, které představují zároveň hlavní globální problémy současnosti. Problematičnost studia procesů globalizace spočívá v nesnadné uchopitelnosti tohoto komplexního procesu, vymykajícího se mantinelům paradigmat jednotlivých sociálních věd, nicméně každý z dílčích vědeckých pohledů konstatuje celé spektrum dopadů procesů globalizace ve své oblasti zájmu. Proto je sledováno konstituování interdisciplinárního přístupu při studiu města v rámci tzv. chicagské školy, kdy sociologie implementovala metody přírodovědné ekologie a vznikl tak přístup pojmenovaný jako human ecology (sociální ekologie), syntetizující poznatky společenských věd a reflektující lokalizovanost či přímo zakotvenost sociokulturních procesů v rámci ekosystému Země. Pozornost je věnována také vlivu pozitivisticky koncipovaného vědeckého poznání, v rámci něhož se utvářela moderní liberální ekonomie, mající fundamentální dopad na současné uspořádání a uspořádávání světa. Globálně dominantní ekonomický systém je nahlížen...Institute of EthnologyÚstav etnologieFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

The city as a home. A culturological approach to global problems

Disertační práce s názvem Město jako domov: Kulturologický přístup ke globálním problémům zpracovává aktuální problematiku dopadů procesů globalizace, která je poj a ta jako proces sociokulturní změny. Pozornost je věnována právě městům, protože ta reprezentují v koncentrované podobě většinu aktuálních procesů sociokulturních změn, které představují zároveň hlavní globální problémy současnosti. Problematičnost studia procesů globalizace spočívá v nesnadné uchopitelnosti tohoto komplexního procesu, vymykajícího se mantinelům paradigmat jednotlivých sociálních věd, nicméně každý z dílčích vědeckých pohledů konstatuje celé spektrum dopadů procesů globalizace ve své oblasti zájmu. Proto je sledováno konstituování interdisciplinárního přístupu při studiu města v rámci tzv. chicagské školy, kdy sociologie implementovala metody přírodovědné ekologie a vznikl tak přístup pojmenovaný jako human ecology (sociální ekologie), syntetizující poznatky společenských věd a reflektující lokalizovanost či přímo zakotvenost sociokulturních procesů v rámci ekosystému Země. Pozornost je věnována také vlivu pozitivisticky koncipovaného vědeckého poznání, v rámci něhož se utvářela moderní liberální ekonomie, mající fundamentální dopad na současné uspořádání a uspořádávání světa. Globálně dominantní ekonomický systém je nahlížen...The thesi s enti tled The Ci ty a s a Home: A Cul turological Approach to Global Problems (Město jako domov: Kulturologický přistup ke globálním problémům) deals wi th the topical issue of the impact of globalization processes. Globalization is understood as a process of socio-cultural change. Attention is devoted to ci ti es in particular, because they represent in concentrated form the majority of the processes of sociocul tural changes, which at the same time consti tute the ma in global problems of the present day. The problematic nature of a study of globalization processes consists of the difficulty of grasping this complex development, which goes beyond the boundaries of individual social-science disciplines. Nevertheless, each particular academic perspecti ve observes in i ts own area of interest an entire spectrum of repercussions ensuing from globalization proces ses. Consequently, the thing that i s being moni tored i s the establishment of an interdisciplinary approach in the study of the city wi thin the ambit of the so-called Chicago School, whereby sociology implemented the methods of scientific ecology and an approach known as human ecology subsequently emerged, which synthesizes the knowledge of social science and reflects the localized nature and direct integration of soci o-cul tural...Institute of EthnologyÚstav etnologieFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Modeling Semantic Emotion Space Using a 3D Hypercube-Projection: An Innovative Analytical Approach for the Psychology of Emotions

The widely accepted two-dimensional circumplex model of emotions posits that most instances of human emotional experience can be understood within the two general dimensions of valence and activation. Currently, this model is facing some criticism, because complex emotions in particular are hard to define within only these two general dimensions. The present theory-driven study introduces an innovative analytical approach working in a way other than the conventional, two-dimensional paradigm. The main goal was to map and project semantic emotion space in terms of mutual positions of various emotion prototypical categories. Participants (N = 187; 54.5% females) judged 16 discrete emotions in terms of valence, intensity, controllability and utility. The results revealed that these four dimensional input measures were uncorrelated. This implies that valence, intensity, controllability and utility represented clearly different qualities of discrete emotions in the judgments of the participants. Based on this data, we constructed a 3D hypercube-projection and compared it with various two-dimensional projections. This contrasting enabled us to detect several sources of bias when working with the traditional, two-dimensional analytical approach. Contrasting two-dimensional and three-dimensional projections revealed that the 2D models provided biased insights about how emotions are conceptually related to one another along multiple dimensions. The results of the present study point out the reductionist nature of the two-dimensional paradigm in the psychological theory of emotions and challenge the widely accepted circumplex model

The city as a home. A culturological approach to global problems

The thesi s enti tled The Ci ty a s a Home: A Cul turological Approach to Global Problems (Město jako domov: Kulturologický přistup ke globálním problémům) deals wi th the topical issue of the impact of globalization processes. Globalization is understood as a process of socio-cultural change. Attention is devoted to ci ti es in particular, because they represent in concentrated form the majority of the processes of sociocul tural changes, which at the same time consti tute the ma in global problems of the present day. The problematic nature of a study of globalization processes consists of the difficulty of grasping this complex development, which goes beyond the boundaries of individual social-science disciplines. Nevertheless, each particular academic perspecti ve observes in i ts own area of interest an entire spectrum of repercussions ensuing from globalization proces ses. Consequently, the thing that i s being moni tored i s the establishment of an interdisciplinary approach in the study of the city wi thin the ambit of the so-called Chicago School, whereby sociology implemented the methods of scientific ecology and an approach known as human ecology subsequently emerged, which synthesizes the knowledge of social science and reflects the localized nature and direct integration of soci o-cul tural..

The city as a home. A culturological approach to global problems

The thesi s enti tled The Ci ty a s a Home: A Cul turological Approach to Global Problems (Město jako domov: Kulturologický přistup ke globálním problémům) deals wi th the topical issue of the impact of globalization processes. Globalization is understood as a process of socio-cultural change. Attention is devoted to ci ti es in particular, because they represent in concentrated form the majority of the processes of sociocul tural changes, which at the same time consti tute the ma in global problems of the present day. The problematic nature of a study of globalization processes consists of the difficulty of grasping this complex development, which goes beyond the boundaries of individual social-science disciplines. Nevertheless, each particular academic perspecti ve observes in i ts own area of interest an entire spectrum of repercussions ensuing from globalization proces ses. Consequently, the thing that i s being moni tored i s the establishment of an interdisciplinary approach in the study of the city wi thin the ambit of the so-called Chicago School, whereby sociology implemented the methods of scientific ecology and an approach known as human ecology subsequently emerged, which synthesizes the knowledge of social science and reflects the localized nature and direct integration of soci o-cul tural..