Opening up Openness to Experience: A Four‐Factor Model and Relations to Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences

Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the Big Five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional and fantasy richness, and unconventionality. Likewise, creative achievement is a broad construct, comprising creativity across the arts and sciences. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between openness to experience and creative achievement. Toward this aim, I factor analyzed a battery of tests of cognitive ability, working memory, Intellect, Openness, affect, and intuition among a sample of English Sixth Form students (N = 146). Four factors were revealed: explicit cognitive ability, intellectual engagement, affective engagement, and aesthetic engagement. In line with dual‐process theory, each of these four factors showed differential relations with personality, impulsivity, and creative achievement. Affective engagement and aesthetic engagement were associated with creative achievement in the arts, whereas explicit cognitive ability and intellectual engagement were associated with creative achievement in the sciences. The results suggest that the Intellectual and Openness aspects of the broader openness to experience personality domain are related to different modes of information processing and predict different forms of creative achievement.     

An Empirical Comparison of Audition,Vision, and Touch in the Discrimination of Temporal Patterns and Ability to Reproduce them

Two conditional reasoning tests were administered to 34 students (17 males and 17 females) at each of four grade levels (i.e., 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th). Both tests contained conditional reasoning arguments which assessed students' comprehension of five basic principles of inference. However, they varied systematically according to the sex typing of the content (i.e., masculine or feminine). The results indicated that there were no significant sex differences according to grade level, type of content, or principle of inference. On the other hand, at each grade level, there were consistent differences among the mean scores for the five principles, and valid principles were significantly easier than invalid principles. The implications of these findings for future research were discussed.     

Effects of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Rock Songs on Projective and Structured Tests

The differences between hostility scores on projective and objective tests as a function of listening to aggressive or nonaggressive rock music were studied. While taking the Thematic Apperception Test (Cards 1, 3BM, 4, 9BM, and 10) and the Buss-Durkee (1957) Hostility Scale, subjects (N = 90) randomly assigned to one of three groups listened to a rock song with (a) nonaggressive music and non-aggressive lyrics, (b) aggressive music and nonaggressive lyrics, or (c) aggressive music and aggressive lyrics. TAT stories were scored for aggressive content according to Hafner and Kaplan's (1960) hostility rating scale. Hostility scores did not differ between groups. The findings are congruent with other investigators' reports that subjects do not pay attention to rock lyrics. Previous findings that music affects the emotional quality of TAT stories and hostility scores on the Buss-Durkee scale were not supported.     

Relationships Between Need for Cognition,Knowledge, and Verbal Ability

The authors investigated the relationships between need for cognition. knowledge, and verbal ability. Participants completed scales that measured their need for cognition, verbal ability, and knowledge about people and events that occurred during the Vietnam War era. Correlational analyses showed that the participants' need for cognition scores were modestly but positively correlated with verbal ability and knowledge and that verbal ability and knowledge were also positively correlated. The correlation between need for cognition and knowledge was small but significant when verbal ability was controlled. The conclusion drawn from these results is that need for cognition contributes to the acquisition of knowledge beyond the contribution of verbal ability.     

The Prediction of Students' Satisfaction with Community College Vocational Training

The present study was conducted with 1,632 college vocational students in North Carolina to test the job satisfaction postulate of Rusbult's (1980a) investment model. The model postulate, that satisfaction is a function of perceived positive and negative outcomes, received support and proved to be defensible even after controlling for a broad array of situational variables. This postulate has also received empirical support from studies of satisfaction with business relationships, friendships, and romantic associations. The present study also introduced a new measure of outcomes: the Perceived Outcomes of College Life measure.     

Advancing the trait EI content domain: Further evidence for the distinctiveness of interpersonal facets

This investigation sought to assess the congruence of the trait emotional intelligence (EI) sampling domain, reflected in the short form of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; Petrides & Furnham, 2006), with the theoretical content of trait EI—namely, the range of personality traits implicated in emotions. First, associations of the TEIQue factors with Emotion-Oriented Coping (EOC) and Social Coping (SC) were compared. Three of the four TEIQue factors were stronger predictors of EOC than SC; only the Emotionality factor was a stronger predictor of SC. Also, Emotionality did not add to the prediction of EOC in a simultaneous regression with the other factors. Secondly, by means of Structural Equation Modelling, the 30-item composite and a theoretically altered 16-item composite were compared as mediators between the Big Five and the emotion-laden dimension of mental health. Even though all interpersonal items (i.e., those pertaining to Sociability and Emotionality) were omitted for the altered composite, it outperformed the original composite in predicting a latent mental health composite of Stress, Anxiety, and EOC. The results highlight the distinct nature of Emotionality and Sociability facets and have implications for the refinement of the trait EI content domain.     

Development and preliminary validation of a scale to assess managing the emotions of others

A new scale, the managing the emotions of others scale (MEOS), was developed. Items were derived from real-life examples provided by an initial group of participants. The resulting scale was completed by 695 participants in a web survey. The factor structure of the scale was examined and a confirmatory factor analysis was also performed on a second sample (N = 276). Six factors were obtained: mood enhancing (Enhance), mood worsening (Worsen), concealing emotions from others (Conceal), use of inauthentic displays (Inauthentic), poor emotional skills (Poor skills), and use of diversion to enhance another’s mood (Divert). Correlations of the factor scores with short measures of the Big Five, the Dark Triad and trait emotional intelligence were examined. Enhance and Divert were strongly correlated with Agreeableness, whilst Worsen and Inauthentic were strongly correlated with all of the Dark Triad. These associations are interpretable in terms of the affiliative nature of Agreeableness and the interpersonally manipulative nature of the Dark Triad. The MEOS factors provide coverage of the different ways (prosocial and non-prosocial) in which people manage the emotions of others.     

Resilience and affect balance as mediators between trait emotional intelligence and life satisfaction

The current study aimed to analyze the importance of trait emotional intelligence in life satisfaction and to extend the previous literature by investigating the potential mediating effects of resilience and affect balance in this relationship. To test the study hypotheses, self-report measures of trait emotional intelligence, resilience, positive and negative affect, and life satisfaction were administrated to 263 undergraduates. Correlation analysis indicated that trait emotional intelligence was positively correlated with life satisfaction. Mediational analyses showed that trait emotional intelligence exerted its indirect effect on life satisfaction through the simple mediating effect of affect balance and the three-path mediating effect of resilience–affect balance. In addition, resilience played as a partial mediator between trait emotional intelligence and affect balance. Furthermore, multi-group analyses showed that the mediational model was not moderated by gender. Therefore, this study makes a contribution to the complex nature of the association between trait emotional intelligence and subjective well-being.     

Problem gambling,gaming and Internet use in adolescents: Relationships with emotional intelligence in clinical and special needs samples

The study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and several addiction-related behaviours (gambling problems, Internet abuse, and computer gaming misuse) in two adolescent samples: 270 clinical outpatients (180 males and 90 females) and 256 special needs students (160 males and 96 females). Gambling problems, Internet abuse, and computer gaming misuse were positively inter-correlated in both samples; approximately half of the variability in these addiction-related behaviours could be accounted for by a common dysfunctional preoccupation latent variable. Latent variable path analysis found emotional intelligence to be a moderate predictor of dysfunctional preoccupation in both adolescent samples.     

The complex relationship between creativity and affect / La compleja relación entre creatividad y afecto

Abstract

The cognitive components of creativity have been widely studied since the last century. However, the role of non-cognitive elements, particularly affect, has only started to be recognized and researched in the field of psychology during the last decades. This paper offers a critical review of the most relevant contributions to the study of the relationship between creativity and affect, from the preliminary research conducted within the psychoanalytic, humanistic and cognitive frameworks, to the most current lines of research regarding the relationship between creativity and emotional states and traits. We then present three integrative and heuristic models as promising initiatives in the study of such a relationship. Finally, we highlight some theoretical and practical considerations for future studies, such as a greater delimitation of conceptualizations of creativity and affect, and the domain specificity of the relationship between them.