How adolescents develop and implement their ideas? On self-regulation of creative action

Abstract

This study explores how adolescents regulate their activity while working on creative projects. A large sample (N = 739) of Polish adolescents reported on their most creative, complex project conducted within the last year and answered retrospectively framed self-regulation items related to this specific activity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated a consistent pattern of self-regulation, capturing pre-task self-regulatory strategies (obstacles expectations, uncertainty acceptance), during-task strategies (adjusting approach, managing and reframing ambiguous goals, emotion regulation and dealing with obstacles), and post-task strategies (improving approach, readiness for sharing). Participants' personality, creative self-concept, and creative mindsets were robustly related to the different strategies reported. Additionally, strategies resulted in differences in judges-assessed creativity of the projects conducted. We discuss the theoretical consequences and future research directions for creative self-regulation studies.

Democratizing Creativity by Enhancing Imagery and Agency: A Review and Meta-Analysis

“…One reason to expect such a relationship is the lower subjective cognitive load that complex tasks induce among more creatively self-efficacious people (Redifer et al, in press). Additionally, given their confidence and experience, they might have a more pragmatic and organized approach to such problems and feel less stressed and helpless when faced with them (Zielińska et al, 2022; Zielińska, Lebuda, & Karwowski, in press).…”

How stable is the creative self-concept? A latent state-trait analysis.

“…This is perfectly in line with conceptualizations of creative self-concept as a surface characteristic of a creative personality (Lebuda et al, 2021). Moreover, given higher malleability of the creative self-concept and its predictive effect on creative effort and action (Zielińska, Lebuda, Ivcevic, & Karwowski, 2022), the possibility to support and enrich creative self-concept gains particular relevance (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009; Meinel et al, 2019). We propose that future work explore the possibility of developing educational interventions that might shape both creative confidence (i.e., creative self-efficacy) and the perceived importance of creativity; namely, creative personal identity.…”

Instructing children to construct ideas into products alters children’s creative idea selection in a randomized field experiment

“…Prior research has showed that people have a natural bias against creativity over feasibility because of uncertainty [ 15 , 52 ]. As such, children may select different types of ideas to reduce uncertainty in the implementation phase [ 67 ]. Future research should aim to investigate these underlying mechanisms.…”