Abstract
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, the public keeps getting epidemic-related information on the media. News reports on the increasing number of fatalities have exposed individuals to death, which causes negative emotional experiences such as tension, anxiety, and fear. This study aimed to investigate whether creativity could serve as an anxiety-buffer when mortality is salient. Based on previous findings, the present study utilized type of creative task and personal search for meaning as moderators. In Study 1, a 2 (mortality salience: absent, present) × 2 (type of creative task: benevolent, malevolent) between-subject design was utilized, and 168 subjects were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. In Study 2, 221 subjects were recruited. The experimental procedure was similar to Study 1, except that the priming paradigm of mortality was changed and search for meaning was included as an additional moderating variable. State anxiety was measured as the dependent variable in both studies. Results of Study 1 showed that, while the benevolent creative task could buffer anxiety in the mortality salience condition, the malevolent creative task did not have the same effect. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between mortality salience, type of creative task, and search for meaning in life on anxiety. In Study 2, the buffering function of benevolent creativity was more intense for participants with a higher level of search for meaning. Together, these findings reveal the influence of different types of creative tasks on individual anxiety levels under death priming conditions and the moderating effect of search for meaning in this relationship. Further, they suggest the need to focus on the role of creativity in terror management.
Highlights
Since the end of 2019, the novel coronavirus epidemic has grown into a major global public health event
The present research incorporated the current context of COVID-19 and examined the role of creativity in the mortality salience effect within the framework of the terror management theory
The results of two studies support the hypothesis that the moderating role of creativity in the mortality salience effect depends on its valence and on the level of personal search for meaning
Summary
Since the end of 2019, the novel coronavirus epidemic has grown into a major global public health event. Owing to the declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID19 outbreak is characterized as a “pandemic” because it is increasingly spreading across the globe. This raging epidemic poses a great threat to public health and property but it presents hidden risks to public mental health (Zhou, 2020). One of the major psychological threats associated with COVID-19 is terror and anxiety related to mortality (Courtney et al, 2020). From the perspective of the terror management theory, the present study aimed to investigate the role of creativity in buffering the anxiety caused by mortality salience, by distinguishing between benevolent and malevolent creativity. We explored whether individual differences in the level of search for meaning in life moderate the anxiety-buffering effect of creativity
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