Recently, second-year Master’s student, Olivia, successfully defended her master’s thesis titled, Challenges are Meant to be Overcome: A Sense of Growth as One Predictor of Children’s Creativity. The study analyzes the relationships between Posttraumatic Growth (PTG), Creativity, and Personal growth among children (8 – 11 years of age) and impacts of environmental factors and caregiver roles on creativity. Olivia found that creativity is positively correlated with both PTG and personal growth with her participants. The children who expressed having faced a challenge in life had higher levels of creativity than those who did not express having a challenge. As hypothesized, results indicated that the participants levels of extraversion significantly predicted creativity.
On the contrary, caregivers levels of extraversion had no significant effect, indicating that levels of creativity may have more to do with the children personality types regardless of their parents personality type’s influence on the children. It was also found that the various levels of the “openness” personality trait of the children and caregiver play no significant role on the children’s level of creativity. These results indicate that for those who experience hardships or challenges, it is possible that growth can be experienced greater when creative avenues are used regularly, along with allowing children to express themselves in ways that follow their personality traits. Wonderful work Olivia, we have been so excited and amazed by the work you have done over the last two years! We are excited to see what comes next for you!
FF-PTG LAB 