Zorana Ivcevic

From Having an Idea to Doing Something With it: Self-Regulation for Creativity

Abstract Decades of research provide rich knowledge about the nature of creative potential (e.g., personality, motivation, and cognitive abilities predicting creativity) and creative products. However, the process between generating creative ideas and actualizing these ideas in creative products is less well understood. In this chapter, we argue that the success of transforming creative ideas into accomplishments substantially depends on effective self-regulation processes. We adapt and extend personality and social psychological research on self-regulation and define two broad groups of self-regulation processes in creativity: (1) revising and restrategizing (including regulating process expectations, adjusting approach, and managing ambitious goals/embracing risk); and (2) sustaining and maintaining effort (including planning and organization strategies, persistence in the face of obstacles, and managing emotions). We conclude the chapter by discussing future directions in the study of self-regulation in the creative process.

Creativity in the Age of Technology: Measuring the Digital Creativity of Millennials

Digital technology and its many uses form an emerging domain of creative expression for adolescents and young adults. To date, measures of self-reported creative behavior cover more traditional forms of creativity, including visual art, music, or writing, but do not include creativity in the digital domain. This article introduces a new measure, the Creative Behavior Questionnaire: Digital (CBQD), which assesses self-reported creative behavior in the digital domain. High school students (N = 230) completed the CBQD, as well as several other measures of creativity and personality. Factor analysis revealed 3 factors: digital creativity achievement, school-based everyday creativity, and self-expressive digital creativity. Factor-based scales showed expected correlations with other creativity measures, as well as Big-Five personality traits and Unconventionality, supporting construct validity. Results indicate that the CBQD can be used as an independent or a supplemental measure of creative behavior.

Building Emotionally Intelligent Schools: From Preschool to High School and Beyond

Despite best attempts, the idea of “leaving your emotions at the door” denies decades of research on the function of emotions. When schools embrace and support the emotions of their students and educators, they create a climate where people feel secure, appreciated, and inspired.

Breadth of Emotion Vocabulary in Early Adolescence

Studies of emotion vocabulary and understanding typically focus on early childhood. Yet, emotion abilities continue to develop into adolescence, making it an important and underinvestigated area of research. This study presents evidence that adolescents’ emotion vocabulary undergoes active development, becomes more broad and sophisticated, varies by gender, and is not captured adequately by recognition-based approaches. Adolescents were asked to generate emotion words for five emotion categories—happy, relaxed, angry, sad, and nervous. Responses included emotion words (e.g., joyous) and nonemotion terms such as metaphors (e.g., boiling), social experiences (e.g., underappreciated), and personality traits (e.g., shy). Girls generated significantly more responses than boys. Older adolescents generated significantly more emotion words (e.g., describing someone who is happy as joyful, exuberant or ecstatic), while younger adolescents produced more nonemotion responses (e.g., describing someone who is happy as smiley, friendly, or full of life). Students’ grade, total number of responses they produced, and performance on the recognition test of emotion understanding predicted their emotion vocabulary.