Measuring self-beliefs of creativity and well-being

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an instrument that measures the extent to which people believe that creativity leads to well-being. The instrument was designed to have two factors: belief that creativity leads to well-being in the short-term and belief that creativity leads to well-being in the long-term. The factors reflected a bipartite conceptualization of well-being as hedonia (short-term) and eudaimonia (long-term). Study 1 provided a basis for reliability and the hypothesized factor structure, offering evidence that there is indeed a distinction between seeing the connection between creativity and well-being more beneficially in the short-term versus the long-term. In Study 2, a confirmatory factor analysis provided further evidence for the two-factor structure. We also found a weak but significant relationship to two related measures: the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al., 1985), and with creative self-efficacy.