COVID-19 Lockdown and Creativity: Exploring the Role of Emotions and Motivation on Creative Activities From the Chinese and German Perspectives

Abstract

For much of 2020, countries around the world fought against the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries went into lockdown to control the fast spread of the virus. The unusual restrictions and confinement of the lockdown brought about new challenges for people’s everyday lives. With flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving at the core of its nature, creativity has the potential to help people cope with harsh and uncertain circumstances. Were people more, the same, or less creative in their everyday life during the period of lockdown, and in which ways? What are the emotions and motivations underlying their creative or non-creative behaviors? The current study aims to explore these questions from a cross-cultural perspective. A total of 754 comparable employee samples from three Chinese and three German cities were asked about their moods during the lockdown period, their self-rated level of creativity in daily lives before and during the lockdown, and their motivations behind their creative activities. Significant increases in creativity were observed in all everyday activities in both countries with only two exceptions in the German sample. Despite minor differences, a common pattern was found across cultures: whereas the activating positive mood could directly lead to the increase in creativity in some everyday activities, such a direct Mood-Creativity link was limited in the activating negative mood circumstances. In such circumstances, motivation intervened to enable the link to creativity. It was also found that this indirect effect of motivation between mood and creativity was more pronounced with the German participants.

Through Thick and Thin: Changes in Creativity During the First Lockdown of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Conversely, negative affective states hindered creativity in some individuals. This result is also consistent with a recent studies showing a relationship between positive affective states during the lockdown and creativity ( Elisondo, 2021 ; Hofreiter et al, 2021 ). Our survey shows that overall, our participants reported more negative subjective and affective experiences during this period than before.…”

“…Hence, SCC relies on a self-rating of one’s own creativity. Similar self-report scales or ratings measuring creativity belief, self-concept, and self-efficacy have been developed ( Beghetto, 2006 ; Ng and Feldman, 2012 ; Karwowski and Barbot, 2016 ; Karwowski and Lebuda, 2016 , 2017 ; Karwowski et al, 2019 ) and used in COVID-19-related studies ( Hofreiter et al, 2021 ; Mercier et al, 2021 ; Patston et al, 2021 ). In contrast to these previous measures, we asked participants to rate a change in their creativity related to a key event (i.e., the beginning of the lockdown).…”

“…The situation related to COVID-19 likely had a major impact on many if not all the creativity dimensions or factors described above, by affecting our emotions, motivations, and wellbeing ( Bu et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Michinov and Michinov, 2020 ; Roma et al, 2020 ; Zabelina et al, 2021 ), modifying our environment, our lifestyle, and availability, but also the standards and incentives of our society during this period, opening a new framework of thought ( Kapoor and Kaufman, 2020 ; Beghetto, 2021 ). The few existing scientific studies that explored creativity during the COVID-19 pandemic have indeed suggested that the lockdown period facilitated everyday creativity ( Karwowski et al, 2021 ; Mercier et al, 2021 ) or that creative abilities could help people dealing with the situation and improve their wellbeing ( Michinov and Michinov, 2020 ; Tang et al, 2020 ; Elisondo, 2021 ; Hofreiter et al, 2021 ; Orkibi, 2021 ). However, those studies did not assess qualitative and quantitative aspects of how creativity changes related to environmental, contextual, or emotional changes.…”

The COVID-19 Experience: Creativity as an Identity Attractor for Young People Facing the Developmental Challenges

“…Was creativity used as an individual resource to cope with the pandemic experience ? In accordance with research results [ 39 , 40 , 41 ] on the use of creative activities during the lockdown, we expected that, even for young people, creativity could serve as a resource for coping with stressful situations.…”

“…With specific reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kapoor and Kaufman [ 35 ] (p. 5) proposed the hypothesis that “such creativity is an avenue to make meaning of current happenings.” Indeed, some evidence has been collected that explored creativity during the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggested that: the lockdown period facilitated everyday creativity [ 36 , 37 ]. Adults and older adults reported lower levels of loneliness on days when they were more creative than usual [ 38 ], and creative abilities helped people deal with lockdown and improved their well-being [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Research on the impact of COVID-19 on the processes of identity formation and creativity in young people is currently lacking.…”