Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Cottrell, Catherine

Keywords

Creative Exercises, Human Behavior, Anxiety, Depression

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

The goal of this research was to examine how different creative exercises benefit people in situations involving low versus high control. To do this, participants were assigned to either a low control situation (in which they did not have many choices for their behavior) or a high control situation (in which they did have many choices for their behavior). Participants then completed either an art-focused creative exercise or a writing-focused creative exercise. Participants completed measures of psychological well-being before and after the creative exercise. Anxiety and depression measures both reduced slightly overall from pre-test to post-test. This is in the direction of the hypothesis that levels of anxiety and depression would decrease regardless of control and exercise condition. Overall, life satisfaction remained the same between pre-test and post-test, but life control slightly improved from pre-test to post-test, regardless of control or creative condition. This would imply that life satisfaction cannot be changed in such a short amount of time, but that it is possible for participants to feel a little more empowered after a simple creative exercise. The other results showed findings that would most likely be significant if there was a larger sample size. However, this study can only suggest patterns, but the degree of change is so small that it is difficult to draw conclusions. Limitations and future research is discussed.

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