Happiness of creative minds in search of usefulness

Abstract

Creativity, commonly rendered equivalent to novelty, has long been counted as a precursor to miserable life. Since the foundation of componential framework, creativity research began to value usefulness as an indispensable dimension as well as novelty. This paper examines the relationship of creativity and subjective well-being, decomposed into novelty and usefulness on the specifics. Using a sample of 552 participants, the current study tested whether creative behavior with a useful focus led to a higher level of subjective well-being than that with a novel focus. Focus on the useful component of creativity positively predicted two different measures of subjective well-being mediated by enhanced prosocial motivation, while focus on the novel component of creativity failed to so.