Cognitive Decline Influences Emotional Creativity in the Elderly

Impact of Long-Term Shaolin Zen Meditation on Emotional Processing in Aging: A Visual ERP Study

The aging process is always accompanied by a decline in cognitive and emotional functions. Although previous studies have identified the positive effects of different meditative practices on emotional and cognitive functions, few studies have investigated the most primitive Chinese meditation-Shaolin Zen meditation. In particular, data are extremely limited regarding the brain mechanism of the effects of Shaolin Zen meditation on cognitive and emotional functions during aging. The current study aimed to explore the effects of long-term Shaolin Zen meditation practice on event-related potentials (ERPs) during facial emotion recognition in aging. ERPs were recorded from 16 monks with long-term meditation experience and 20 controls without meditation experience. The significant age-related degenerative changes in the early ERP components did not present in the meditators but only in the controls without meditation experience. Additionally, we found no group differences in the late P3 component. These findings suggest that long-term Shaolin Zen meditation practice can counteract the age-related cognitive decline in the "down-top" automatic processing of emotional stimuli.

The predictive ability of emotional creativity in motivation for adaptive innovation among university professors under COVID-19 epidemic: An international study

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.

The Influence of L2 Proficiency on Bilinguals' Creativity: The Key Role of Adaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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.

Decreased emotional creativity and its relationship with cognitive functions in Parkinson's disease: A preliminary study

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) suffer from a wide range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive deficits and impairment of emotional processing. The present study aimed to explore in PD patients compared to healthy adults the relationship between cognitive performance and emotional creativity (EC), defined as a set of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness of emotional experience. PD patients (n = 22) and healthy controls (n = 40) underwent a complex neuropsychological assessment and were administrated with the self-reported Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI) questionnaire. To explore the relationship between cognitive tests and the ECI, a regression analysis was conducted. PD patients and healthy controls differed significantly in the EC component Preparedness as well as in the neuropsychological test battery scores. PD patients showed lower scores in cognitive tests and a lower score in Preparedness compared to healthy adults. The output of the regression analysis showed that the extent to which the neuropsychological tests relate to the ECI components is low.

Age-related differences in valence and arousal of emotion concepts

Emotion concepts are representations that enable people to make sense of their own and others’ emotions. The present study, theoretically driven by the conceptual act theory, explores the overall spectrum of emotion concepts in older adults and compares them with the emotion concepts of younger adults. Data from 178 older adults (⩾55 years) and 176 younger adults (20–30 years) were collected using the Semantic Emotion Space Assessment task. The arousal and valence of 16 discrete emotions – anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, hope, love, hate, contempt, guilt, compassion, shame, gratefulness, envy, disappointment, and jealousy – were rated by the participants on a graphic scale bar. The results show that (a) older and younger adults did not differ in the mean valence ratings of emotion concepts, which indicates that older adults do not differ from younger adults in the way they conceptualise how pleasant or unpleasant emotions are. Furthermore, (b) older men rated emotion concepts as more arousing than younger men, (c) older adults rated sadness, disgust, contempt, guilt, and compassion as more arousing and (d) jealousy as less arousing than younger adults. The results of the present study indicate that age-related differentiation of conceptual knowledge seems to proceed more in the way that individuals understand how arousing their subjective representations of emotions are rather than how pleasant they are.

A Positive Role of Negative Mood on Creativity: The Opportunity in the Crisis of the COVID-19 Epidemic

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.

Does Playing Video Games Increase Emotional Creativity?

Emotional creativity (EC), which constitutes a main aspect of the general creativity concept, is often shown to be substantially related to positive emotional experiences, effective motivation, and innovation at the workplace as well as at school. However, little is known about the relationship between emotional creativity and the time people tend to spend playing video games. Nowadays, video games and virtual reality have become an important aspect of public health and psychological research. They constitute a key element of popular culture and generate considerable economic profit as part of the public entertainment industry. Our study is based on the results of an emotional creativity inventory (ECI) survey that was administered at a snowball and convenient sample of 453 respondents (aged 18-60 years, M ± SD: 23.68 ± 6.36; 66.40% women, 20.00% with higher education) from the Czech Republic who were questioned about their habits and the time they devote to playing video games. The sample country was selected as one with a long tradition of homebrew video gaming going back to the 1980s. We employed a set of multinomial regression analyses, which revealed that more time devoted to playing video games is associated with lower emotional creativity, in general, as well as with lower novelty, preparedness, and effectiveness components of emotional creativity. The negative association above was less pronounced for women than for men. Moreover, in a sample containing only women, a longer time devoted to playing video games was associated with the higher novelty component of emotional creativity (the associations with the other two components were not statistically significant for women only). Our findings might considerably contribute to the study of the general overall long-term effect of video games and the use of digital technologies in general on public health.