The Influence Of Creative Coping On Achievement Emotions And Academic Stress:Mechanism Exploration And Intervention Study

Creative coping is the use of creativity as a positive strategy when facing stress.It helps people think positively about new coping methods and intentionally try out novel ways they have not used before.The existing empirical investigation of creative coping is scarce,particularly in the field of educational psychology.The present study aims to explore the influence of college students’ creative coping on achievement emotions and academic stress as well as the underlying mechanism,and compare the differences between creative coping and general coping styles.The current research includes three sub-studies.In Study 1,we surveyed 780 Chinese college students to explore the relationships of college students’ creative coping and their achievement emotions and academic stress and the mediating role of psychological capital.We used the Creative Coping Scale,Positive Psychological Capital Questionnaire,Learning Stress Inventory for College Students,and the short version of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire.Correlation analysis,linear regression analysis and structural equation modeling were performed on the data.Statistical results showed that creative coping was positively related with students’ positive achievement emotions and negatively related with negative achievement emotions,but insignificantly with academic stress.Moreover,psychological capital played a mediating role in the relationship between creative coping and achievement emotions,and in the relationship between creative coping and academic stress with a suppression effect.In Study 2,we utilized an experimental method to further validate the results of study 1,as well as explore the differences between creative coping and a general form of coping.We recruited 122 participants and randomly assigned them to the creative coping group and the general coping group.Participants were asked to accomplish the Alternative Uses Task(AUT),academic stress coping task,state achievement emotions scale,and Visual Analogue Scale(VAS)for academic stress before and after guided coping.The Paired Samples Test results of stress perception and state achievement emotions measurement showed that both creative coping and general coping could effectively promote positive achievement emotions and reduce negative achievement emotions and academic stress.No significant differences between the two coping styles were found.Study 3 was a mixed-method study combining randomized controlled trial and interviews.Eighty-eight participants were randomly assigned to the creative coping intervention group,the relaxation coping group as active control and the blank control group.Levels of creative coping,psychological capital,achievement emotions and academic stress were measured before,within three days after,and one month after the intervention.The measures were the same as Study 1.Statistical results showed that the creative coping coaching was effective in improving self-reported creative coping and decreasing negative achievement emotions and academic stress,but there was no significant difference in creative coping among the three groups after intervention.Moreover,significant improvements of psychological capital and positive achievement emotions were found in the creative coping coaching group.Creative coping coaching and relaxation coping intervention showed similar effects on the improvement of psychological capital and positive achievement emotions.The interview results showed that the participation of the creative coping intervention make participants think about and try more new coping methods,which complemented the effect of the intervention.The current research advances theoretical perspective and empirical evidence for the role of creativity in stress coping situations and inspiration for subsequent research on creative coping as an emerging field.The designed coaching program of creative coping is of practical significance for further intervention studies of coping strategies in academic context.