I present the full document of my first phd in Applied psychology.

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Abstract

Evolutionary biology suggests that creativity is related to sexual and romantic motives. Studies on relation of creativity and mental health have also yielded contradictory findings. The present research purported to determine the relation of creativity assessed through concepts of Neuroaesthetics, with romantic motive and mental health. The specific objectives of the present study are to determine: 1) The effects of training status (painter versus non-painter) and age group (older versus younger) on mental health, romantic motive and universals of aesthetics and overall quality of creative production. 2) The relationship of mental health and romantic motive with universals of aesthetics and overall quality of creative production. 3) Effects of induced romantic motives on universals of aesthetics and overall quality in creative productions. A total of 220 male participants comprising 40 established painting professionals, 40 non-painting professionals, 70 painting students and 70 non-painting students responded to an Information schedule, the General Health Questionnaire-28, PGI wellbeing scale, and the Sternberg Triangular Love Scale. Subsequently, the participants were divided in control and experimental groups. Participants of the experimental group produced a spontaneous drawing (spontaneous condition), to be followed by two experimental conditions where romantic motive was induced in random succession by (a) showing the picture of a sexually attractive woman, and (b) fantasizing a romantic relationship. They produced drawings after each induced condition. The control group produced three consecutive drawings without any induction of romantic motive. The drawings were scored by raters in terms of universals of aesthetics and overall quality of creative production. Descriptive statistics, MANOVA and correlation showed significant effects of training status and age group on the 10 creativity variables taken in combination. Creative production was not associated with reported mental health or romantic motives. But, in the experimental part, while there was no difference among the three conditions in the control groups, there were significant differences in experimental group in non-painters and especially in the painters.

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