The relationship between creativity and emotions: The concept of emotional creativity and its implications for educational science
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31074/gyntf.2026.1.67.77Keywords:
creativity, emotions, systems perspective, emotional creativity, teacher educationAbstract
Educational research on the creativity–emotion nexus addresses (1) the role of emotions in creative performance, motivation, and persistence, and (2) the emotional qualities of creative processes and their pedagogical regulation. Both lines of inquiry connect to emotional creativity (EC), conceptualized as the novel, effective, and authentic shaping of emotional experience, supported by emotional knowledge and reflexivity (Averill & Thomas-Knowles, 1991; Averill, 1999; Averill, 2000; Averill, 2005). This theoretical paper synthesizes EC and links it to systems-oriented models of creativity (person–domain–field; Csíkszentmihályi, 1996; Csíkszentmihályi, 2014), achieving educational implications. The paper’s contribution is to frame EC not merely as an individual-difference construct but as a field- and norm-sensitive educational phenomenon shaped by classroom emotion norms, feedback cultures, and teachers’ emotional work (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019). The synthesis is supported by integrative tables and a research–development agenda informed by recent reviews and applied studies (Kuška et al., 2020; González-Zamar & Abad-Segura, 2021; Čábelková et al., 2022).
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