Self-Belief in Creative Fluency Mediates the Association between Life Satisfaction and Optimism Among Adults in Japan: Insights from an Online Survey and Case-Control Workshop

Self-Belief in Creative Fluency Mediates the Association between Life Satisfaction and Optimism Among Adults in Japan: Insights from an Online Survey and Case-Control Workshop | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Self-Belief in Creative Fluency Mediates the Association between Life Satisfaction and Optimism Among Adults in Japan: Insights from an Online Survey and Case-Control Workshop Russell Sarwar Kabir, Soshi Uehara, Brett Raymond Walter, Shogo Hihara This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Background: In the context of Japan, beliefs about individual creativity are low. Studies rarely account for multiple factors of creativity or provide brief-session applications. Methods: The present study (1) examines associations between originality and fluency as distinct sources of variation in self-beliefs of satisfaction with life (SWLS) and optimism (LOT-R) in an observational study design of national survey panel participants recruited during the COVID-19 pandemic ( n =880; 401 females; M age =38.12, SD =4.67), and (2) performs a quasi-experimental comparison of scores taken with emerging adults participating in a three-hour, intercultural creativity-based workshop featuring 15 U.S. and 25 undergraduate students from Japan. Results: Results indicated correlational support for the two subscales of the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA): originality ( life satisfaction : r =.24; optimism : r= .29, p s <.001) and fluency (SWLS: r =.29; LOT-R: r= .31, p s <.001). Mediation analysis revealed unique support for the RDCA factor of fluency ( β =0.15, p =.003) over originality ( β =-0.03, p= .481) as a parallel mediator for the association between optimism and life satisfaction . Case-control comparison revealed that mean factor scores of survey participants for originality were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural workshop ( d= .110, p=. 569), but fluency scores were numerically higher and statistically significant ( d=- .444, p=. 026), in favor of the workshop participants. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the specific creative tendency to generate many ideas is relevant to well-being outcomes and might be shaped by educational settings for adults in Japan, offering implications for instructional designers targeting creative self-efficacy. self-assessment creativity optimism life satisfaction design thinking intercultural learning creative fluency originality Figures Figure 1 Background Studies have pointed to the impact of creativity on human development from multiple levels of analysis. Empirical research has aggregated findings from scales as large as the upward productivity of group collaborations tied to the relative output of applied innovations across sectors (e.g., via the number of artists and patents per capita in creative societies, Jackson, Gelfand, De, & Fox, 2019), to the everyday habits of behavior and mind evident in the life trajectories of eminent persons (Walberg & Stariha, 1992; Richards, 1993; Piirto, 2009). Human capital development research points to the upstream benefits of “creative potential” when fostered among children and adolescents (Walberg & Stariha, 1992; Lubart, Zenasni, & Barbot, 2013; Barbot & Heuser, 2017), and creative individuals have been shown to possess unique characteristics (e.g., robust semantic networks, Kenett et al., 2018; Kenett, 2024). A wide array of theories of creativity have been tested with self-reported and task-based measures (for review, see Kaufman & Glăveanu, 2021; for spreading activation theory, see Schubert, 2021). Robust meta-analytical support for the cognitive process of recruitment involved in divergent thinking and the close-ended insight found in convergent thinking have been shown in prior studies (e.g., Gajda, Karwowski, & Beghetto, 2017). While some aspects of the definition of creativity remain controversial, a standard has been established that emphasizes satisfying two key criteria: the ability to generate (a) useful and (b) original ideas (Runco & Jaeger, 2012; Batey, 2012). This definition was recently updated to distinguish between human-generated and machine-generated creative output (Runco, 2023). It is also reflected in the cognitive components captured by the construct of creative adaptability after a crisis (Orkibi, 2021). Notably, distinctions in the cognitive and affective factors for creativity as a form of problem-solving have been observed in prior studies (e.g., Tan et al., 2019). Even though creative thinking has also been disambiguated from related processes like mind-wandering (Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel, & Baas, 2010) and cognitive flexibility (e.g., Preiss, 2022), there are many unresolved issues with the measurement of creative constructs (Said-Metwaly, Kyndt, & Van den Noortgate, 2017). It is also important to note that not all instances of creativity are psychologically salubrious, indicated in prior findings on the “dark side of creativity” and its implementation known as malevolent innovation (Hunter et al., 2021), as well as in the implications of the established association between divergent thinking and arousal (Lin et al., 2014). While creative problem-solving has been posed as a powerful method to enhance optimal development (Lubart, Zenasni, & Barbot, 2013; Barbot & Heuser, 2017), a lack of attention to social context was noted by researchers reviewing factors promoting or preventing adolescent creativity (van der Zanden, Meijer, & Beghetto, 2020). Clarifying the relations between constructs might allow for greater scrutiny about the conditions in which creativity contributes to this enhancement, and whether those conditions are appropriate for scale or application to educational settings. The present study aims to (a) contribute to the validation of assessment tools to measure dimensions of creativity as a developmental construct in a diverse context, and (b) explore the role of workshop interventions to promote creativity among late adolescents and emerging adults attending institutions of higher education. Studies Examining the Association between Optimism and Life Satisfaction Contrary to the challenges with capturing creativity reported above, consistent determinants of life satisfaction have been observed across the lifespan (Joshanloo & Jovanović, 2021), making it a key outcome that reflects the psychological functioning of adult populations. Optimism is construed as a psychological resource that might act as a buffer for stressful events and situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, indirectly affecting subjective well-being (Genç & Arslan, 2021) and satisfaction with life (Bohman, Eger, Hjerm, & Mitchell, 2023). Life satisfaction and having a positive outlook on life have yet to be investigated against factors of creativity during the pandemic. This intersection could provide new insights into the well-established statistical relations between measures of optimism and psychological well-being. For example, Oh and colleagues (2022) performed a latent growth curve analysis of the Rochester Adult Longitudinal Study, which examined changes and consequences for dispositional optimism among 984 adults over the course of twenty-five years. Interestingly, optimism was found to increase over time at comparable rates, and more optimistic participants engaged in behaviors that were associated with better physical health, higher life satisfaction, and higher purpose in life twenty-five years later. Similarly, numerous findings from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) national longitudinal study of health and well-being have corroborated the benefits of optimism for health (e.g., Lee, Chen, Mendes, & Kubzansky, 2023). For our context and population of interest, cross-cultural comparisons for optimism between the United States and Japan have also been conducted (Kan et al., 2014; Long, Lu, Walker, & Gallagher, 2021; Nawa & Yamagishi, 2024), finding lower levels of total optimism in the case of Japan. Notably, Japan consistently ranks low among developed countries on average life evaluation aggregated in the World Happiness Report (Helliwell et al., 2024). Annual national survey results by the Cabinet Office of Japan have reported a lower percentage of Japanese respondents who answered that they were satisfied or somewhat satisfied with life, compared to similar cohorts in Germany, Sweden, and the United States (Cabinet Office, 2020: Minagawa & Saito, 2023). This is an important indicator to monitor in aging societies like Japan as findings from the Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging, among others, have underscored the importance of higher life satisfaction as an indicator of physical health in older populations (Minagawa & Saito, 2023). In sum, the constructs of optimism and life satisfaction possess high degrees of validity and comparability across large-scale studies, especially through the predictive association between optimism and life satisfaction. Furthermore, reports from Japan have shown trends for lower levels of both constructs, inviting further description or examination of granular factors within the context (i.e., the relative contribution of constructs related to creativity within the association between optimism and life satisfaction). Research Findings on Self-Assessed Creativity from Around the World Less attention has been paid to distinguishing creativity within the nomological net of strengths-based constructs. To further scrutinize its components, one viable approach toward observing consistency across findings would be to integrate cultural (e.g.., Kwan, Leung, & Liou, 2018; Brown, 2024), cross-cultural (e.g., face logic endorsement in Miron-Spektor, Paletz, & Lin, 2015), and cross-national perspectives for their comparability across contexts (Lubart, 2010). To date, four studies have made efforts to capture individual differences in creativity between countries. Orkibi and colleagues (2024) observed differences in creative adaptability with 1,432 adults from Israel, the United States, China, and Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and found convergently positive associations between for the construct with creative self-efficacy, resilient coping, and reappraisal emotion regulation in all countries. Comparing differences in creative self-beliefs among youth and adolescents in India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, Dimitrova and colleagues (2021) found that nine items from an instrument known as the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) indicated high degrees of psychometric quality. For Latin American countries, Manrique-Millones, Pineda-Marin, Millones-Rivalles and Dimitrova (2021) similarly reported high reliability and comparable mean scores for creativity for the same nine items of the RDCA with youth and emerging adults in Peru and Colombia. Finally, a multiple regression analysis of the RDCA in a study of Malaysian emerging adults by Abdul Kadir and Rusyda (2022) supported moderately positive associations between creativity (modeled as a total score) with developmental asset-based measures of thriving and well-being factors from the mental health continuum. Together, these studies suggest that creativity is a resource observed cross-nationally via the RDCA, applicable to stressful situations, and salient as a long-term outcome for youth transitioning into adulthood. Research Findings on Creativity with Adults in Japan Broad social surveys of respondents in Japan report a lack of creativity at school, work, and in one’s personal life. Online survey respondents in the Adobe “State of Create” Study (2017) regarded Japan as the most creative country (34% of 5026 adults), but the percentage of Japanese who considered themselves creative was extremely low at a mere 13 percent (Adobe, 2017). Despite a national reputation for innovation, surveys of employees in Japan frequently report feeling a lack of creativity. In the Steelcase Creativity at Work Report (2018), only 29% of survey respondents from Japan indicated that creativity was required for their daily job, and 60% indicated a desire to be more creative in their job than they are now. An OECD brief by Cignetti and Rabella (2023) on creative thinking in schools suggested that Japan’s educational system is supported by training qualifications related to creativity but remains one of the few countries whose percentage of jurisdictions do not explicitly refer to curricula or learning standards for creative thinking in primary education (<25% of share of subjects; Cignetti & Rabella, 2023). According to a study on creativity myths by Ishiguro, Sato, and Inamizu (2024), relative to cohorts from Austria, Germany, Poland, China, Georgia, and the United States, Japanese participants reported a stronger belief in creativity as requiring a rare form of talent, that creativity is synonymous with being artistic, and that it is difficult to change one’s creativity (Ishiguro, Sato, & Inamizu, 2024),). A high rate of uncertainty about the responses was noted in their study on creativity myths and facts, as well as numerically low levels of self-rated creativity. Together with findings on general beliefs, these broad trends on the recognition of creativity in school and work settings highlight Japan as a unique context for observing self-assessed creativity among emerging and established adults. Creativity constructs have been explored, compared, and even disambiguated in many studies from Japan. Yamaoka and Yukawa (2020) asked eight-hundred and sixty-five participants to complete a questionnaire covering trait levels of mind-wandering, divergent thinking, and mental health measures. The results of their regression analysis suggested that depressive symptoms ( β = .28, p < .001) and divergent thinking scores ( β = .11, p < .001) were statistically significant predictors of mind wandering frequency. Ishiguro and colleagues (2022) examined multiple methods of creativity measurement for creative potential production, achievement, and beliefs about creative personality and observed a positive relationship for divergent thinking (i.e., fluency and elaboration) with creative production in fine arts and achievement, as well as a moderating effect of creative personality beliefs within that association. Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Okada (2024a) developed and validated a Japanese version of the Short Scale of Creative Self (SSCS-J) with one thousand four-hundred and thirty-six Japanese participants and found strong indicators of psychometric quality for the instrument and suggested that it should be modeled unidimensionally. Their comprehensive validation also showed several indices of convergent validity against measures of general optimism ( r = .48, p < .01), optimism as a subscale of resilience ( r = .48, p < .01), subjective well-being ( r = .44, p < .01), personal need for achievement ( r = .42, p < .01), self-esteem (r = .49, p < .01), and Big Five personality traits (e.g., Openness, r = .61, p < .01). At the item level, Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Noguchi (2024) found support for the psychometric basis of indicators related to cultivating a creative mindset in Japan and showed a distinct correlation for SSCS-J scores as moderately associated with a growth ( r = .50, p < .001) over a fixed ( r = .01, p < .01) mindset. Finally, real-life or “everyday” creativity was examined in a study of university students and general adults from Japan by Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Okada (2024b). This study provided even more evidence of lower mean levels of real-life creativity from activities and achievements among Japanese individuals. Astonishingly, levels were approximately half as high as those reported by Western and Chinese counterparts in their study. The fact that these studies have consistently found low levels of creative self-concept and output in daily life suggests that creativity constructs might be sensitive to change upon exposure to educational or recreational activities. In light of these findings, while many reliable and valid tools to measure creativity have been used with adults throughout Japan, studies have yet to implement the RDCA as an approach to self-assessment. This gap is important as the RDCA tool captures multiple facets of creativity as distinct sources of self-belief (i.e., distinguishing between fluency and originality of ideas). The RDCA approach to creative constructs is not necessarily anchored to an overall sense of creative self-concept (i.e., trait-like personal identity in the SSCS, Karwowski, 2011; Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, & Okada, 2024), but reflective of the specific domains as factors. Similar to the SSCS factor of creative self-efficacy, the RDCA domain-based operationalizations of creativity might be more amenable to brief educational interventions. Prior research targeting self-assessed creativity levels through instructional design methods and workshops is detailed in the next section. Need for Design Thinking Programs in Education to Improve Creative Self-Beliefs Given that creativity is an endpoint to youth development and mental health outcomes at the personal level, and that it provides cross-cutting, upstream benefits to communities and societies alike, the sector of educational management has an obligation to train human resources in Japan to engage with their creative beliefs through creative activities. Indeed, creativity is targeted as a 21st century skill that is desired for work settings to tackle global challenges. Efforts are needed to connect research on creativity between psychology and education as disciplines (Long, Kerr, Emler, & Birdnow, 2022). A meta-analysis of 135 correlation coefficients from 27 studies by Gralewskia and Karwowski (2019) suggested a weak-to-moderate association ( r = .23) between teacher ratings of student creativity and student divergent thinking abilities. In addition, a meta-analysis of 77 effect sizes from 19 studies by Zhan, He and Zhong (2024), who examined the effects of problem-solving pedagogy on creativity, suggested that student-discovered rather than teacher-determined problems promoted more creative stimulation and that grade levels were important moderators of the overall effect (e.g., elementary and university education level studies showed higher effects of problem-solving pedagogy on creativity relative to middle and high school level studies). Thus, while it is clear that teachers recognize student creativity and influence problem-solving abilities through specific pedagogical choices, it is often unclear to educators how or when creativity should be orchestrated from the viewpoint of instructional design. We surmise that educators would likely benefit from access to a repertory of activities, programs, or workshops that can be mapped to the format of their learning objectives and curricula. Toward this end, seminal work on the RDCA by Reisman, Keiser, and Otti (2016), and others, consolidated several teaching activities and organized them in terms of their most relevant domain(s) or dimension(s) of creativity. For example, instructions for “mindstorming” were offered to promote creative fluency, and the procedure for SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, or Reverse; Byron, 2005) was provided as a means to prompt divergent thinking. A comprehensive review on implementation points for the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) connected its components with warm-up descriptions for pedagogical choices by educators to include classroom activities like De Bono’s “six thinking hats” and elaboration activities that use a string with knots for students to “spin a yarn” to encourage thinking aloud in the classroom (Alabbasi, Paek, Kim, & Cramond, 2022). Others have used questioning activities in domains like second language learning (Yu, Wang, & Yuizono, 2023), but some methods in this context have been limited to task conditions (Smith, 2017) and, in other contexts, effects have been attributed to the characteristics of the activities themselves (Forte-Celaya, Ibarra, & Glasserman-Morales, 2021). In recent years, interdisciplinary teaching (Liu et al., 2022) and experiential arts education-based (Tackett et al., 2023) approaches have also been explored as innovative methods, covering TTCT and RDCA factors of creativity alike. Newer efforts in education have sought to promote design thinking , whose principles ask students to (1) empathize, (2) define, (3) ideate, (4) prototype, and (5) test a product or proposal in an iterative cycle. This approach combines several methods from creativity research and teaching practices into a cohesive whole (see Darbellay, Moody, & Lubart, 2017). Design thinking has been formulated in the constructivist tradition (Pande & Bharathi, 2020), applied at the curricular level and evaluated with students in higher education (Guaman-Quintanilla, Everaert, Chiluiza, & Valcke, 2023), and even integrated into training for pre-service teachers (Calavia, Blanco, Casas, & Dieste, 2023). In Japan, online art workshops (Ishiguro, Natsukawa, & Okada, 2022), project-based learning (Ishiguro & Sugano, 2021), and team-based creative engineering education (Ishiguro, 2021) have been implemented but reports of design thinking workshops are relatively limited. Notably, Kijima, Yang-Yoshihara, and Maekawa (2021) conducted a three-day workshop to encourage 103 young females from several prefectures in Japan to pursue STEM education and observed modest but statistically significant gains in creative confidence. In addition, one study set a precedent for intercultural learning using an explicit organizing principle for Japanese students to work with non-Japanese peers in a scheduled educational setting. Over the course of a semester, Krutphong and colleagues (2023) conducted a series of design thinking workshops for Thai and Japanese STEM majors to come up with innovations that will contribute to progress on several Sustainable Development Goals. Together, these findings suggest the potential for design thinking as an organizing principle in instructional design and the need to both develop and evaluate brief-session workshops as educational programs to improve self-assessed creative beliefs and creative activities. The Present Study The act of generating creative solutions to challenging situations has been tagged as a positive coping response to the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and is understood as an outcome of youth development. While many studies from Japan and abroad have investigated relations between creativity constructs, none have measured fluency and originality with the RDCA and few have connected these factors to those other positive psychology constructs like optimism and life satisfaction. Design thinking workshops offer a rich set of opportunities for students to engage in collaborative problem-solving as creative activities but have yet to be examined for contributing to differences in self-assessed creative beliefs in their fluency and originality in Japan. Here, we extend the nomological net of construct relations in Japan through correlations as measures of effect size for data from emerging and established adults and conduct an analysis for the two factors of creativity operationalized within the RDCA framework as parallel mediators for the relationship between dispositional optimism and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, we examine case-control mean differences for these two factors upon implementing an original, three-hour workshop based on design thinking principles in a novel setting: education and engineering majors from a Japanese and North American university simultaneously collaborating in a physical classroom during a faculty-led trip to Japan. Research Question 1: Do the specific RDCA factors of fluency and originality have positive, standardized parameter estimates when modeled as correlations and as mediators for the relationship between optimism and life satisfaction among adults in Japan? We expect that both RDCA factors will be positive in direction and moderate in magnitude. Research Question 2: Are average factor scores on the specific RDCA factors of fluency and originality higher than the average population factor scores after engaging in an educational workshop based on design thinking principles? We expect that RDCA factors will be higher for workshop participants than for a sample of the general population. Methods Survey Participants The survey data for Japan were collected as part of a large, cross-national project known as “International and Multidimensional Perspectives on the Impact of COVID-19 across Generations (IMPACT-C19),” led by the Research Initiatives Working Group of the American Psychological Association Interdivisional Task Force on the pandemic. The aim of the IMPACT-19 project was to create a repository of data, materials, and resources (Karakulak et al., 2023). A committee approach was taken to item translation for scales that lacked existing validations in the English and Japanese research literature. A native speaker of Japanese translated the items. These were back translated into English and subsequently checked and corrected by another native speaker of English and Japanese, respectively, until fidelity was achieved. During the period spanning from April to July of 2021, a total of 974 emerging and established adults in Japan (i.e., aged 18–45 years; M age = 38.12, SD = 4.67) participated in the online observational survey as a part of the international research project, which was undertaken to examine the effects of the pandemic on psychological attitudes and functioning. Visual inspection of the Japanese survey responses indicated missing and incomplete data for 94 participants for the measures of interest. Listwise deletion was employed, and a total of 880 participants provided complete data for analysis (426 males, 453 females, 1 not reported; M age = 36.21, SD = 7.21). Parental and self-related highest levels of education were chosen as proxies for socioeconomic status. Relevant demographic information for the analytic sample is presented in Table 1. Survey Procedure Participants responded to the online survey from a questionnaire link built in Qualtrics (https://www.qualtrics.com) after providing informed consent. Snowball sampling was used to obtain responses from emerging adults attending a total of two universities in Japan, one from the Chūgoku and Kyūshū regions, respectively. Established adults were recruited using the crowdsourcing website, Lancers (https://www.lancers.jp/), and employed a stratified random sampling strategy. This research service possesses one of the highest number of registrants in Japan. They received 440 JPY (about 4.0 USD) after completing the survey for their participation. This research project was approved by the Ethical Committee of [AFFILIATION BLINDED FOR REVIEW]. Table 1 Sociodemographic Information for the Online Survey and Workshop Participants Characteristic Online Survey Workshop n % n % Gender Male 426 48.41 13 56.22 Female 454 51.59 10 43.48 Japanese nationality 875 99.43 25 100 Highest educational level completed High school and below 16 1.93 25 100 Two-year university degree 206 25.37 Four-year university degree 130 40.16 Graduate degree 462 92.72 Other 65 7.40 Have children 336 38.18 Employment status Full-time student Full-time employee Working and studying Not in work or study Lost job due to COVID-19 Difficulty finding new Job Online business to supplement income 135 354 74 63 16 64 219 14.60 38.27 6.36 6.81 1.73 6.92 23.68 Note. Multiple selections were allowed for the employment status item ( n =867). Two workshop participants did not report their gender. One workshop participant was not a regular student from Japan within the range of 18 to 29 years of age and was removed from the case-control comparison. Survey Measures Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA; Reisman, Keiser, & Otti, 2016). The RDCA is a self-assessment tool designed to evaluate creativity across multiple dimensions and domains in research on individual differences and educational interventions. The comprehensive 38-item version captures as many as 11 distinct factors of creativity. We translated and back-translated nine items from the two factors of fluency and originality used in previous studies comparing cross-national positive youth development (Dimitrova et al., 2021). Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Life Orientation Scale-Revised (LOT-R; Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994; Japanese translation by Sato, Kawamoto, & Komiya, n.d.). The LOT-R is a brief tool to assess dispositional optimism, which is defined as the general expectation that good things will happen in the future. The measure consists of 6 items for optimism and pessimism. Participants respond to each item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (“strongly disagree”) to 4 (“strongly agree”). Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Kjell & Diener, 2021; Japanese version adapted from Sumino, 1994). A short-form version of the SWLS was used to assess global life satisfaction. Taken from the original SWLS scale (Diener et al., 1985), this shortened version by Kjell and Diener (2021) includes the first three items of the original scale, as follows: in most ways my life is close to my ideal; the conditions of my life are excellent; I am satisfied with my life. The items are rated using a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (CAS; Lee et al., 2020; Jovanović et al., 2023). The CAS was developed by Lee and colleagues (2020) and its psychometric properties were validated across 60 countries (Jovanović et al., 2023). The CAS is comprised of five items about responses to the coronavirus, namely feelings of dizziness, trouble falling or staying asleep, feeling paralyzed or frozen, losing interest in eating, and feeling nauseous when encountering information about the coronavirus. Participants are asked to rate the frequency of each symptom over the last 2 weeks on a 5-point scale with options, not at all (1), rare, less than a day or two (2), several days (3), more than 7 days (4), and nearly every day (5). This measure was included as a divergent validity check for the network of variables at the level of correlations and control variable in the mediation analysis. Workshop Participants The design thinking workshop was developed by three faculty members in early 2023 and held in the third week of May 2023. A faculty-led study abroad trip to Japan for 15 American students from a university in the South Atlantic region of the United States was planned and implemented by the U.S.-based faculty (see Authors, 2023). Most of the U.S. students were majoring in engineering. Their study tour included multiple visits connected to architectural marvels and sites affiliated with industrial innovation in Japan. Embedded in the trip were onsite visits to universities in the Chūbu and Chūgoku regions for expert-led lectures. The workshop in the present study details the program designed for the latter region, whose counterpart students in Japan were English education majors as an optional course supplement. A total of 26 students from the Japanese university participated in the full workshop. One workshop participant was not a regular student from Japan within the range of 18 to 29 years of age and was removed from the case-control comparison ( n =25 for the analytic sample). Table 2 Program and Workbook Flow of the ‘Partnerships in Creative Communication’ Workshop Duration Educational Tool and Design Thinking Phase Activity Flow 10 mins Getting settled in assigned room 5-10 mins Arthur (2020) Icebreaker using “1-2-3, Action!” 10 mins Paired discussion on Japan trip experiences 10 mins Youth Development English Practice Activities in Krizay (2015) “Search and sign” bingo for Japan/America experiences 15 mins “SCAMPER” Questioning Strategies in Reisman, Keiser, & Otti (2016) Interactive Presentation on Creativity and Innovation Examples from Major Automaker Design Studio Bücker & Korzilius (2015) Paper Airplane or Bridge Design Task from Ecotonos 10 mins Break 5-10 mins Empathize, Define Design Thinking Presentation Overview Description(s) of Main Design Task and Brainstorming Challenge 45 mins Ideate, Prototype [Optional] Design and Discussion Time 10 mins Break 30 mins [Test] Questionnaire Packet with RDCA Gallery Walk to Present Creative Proposals Odd/Even Numbered Groups [15 mins each] Workshop Procedure Table 1 depicts the flow of activities for the approximately three-hour workshop. Following materials like the Design Thinking Process Guide (Plattner, 2013), students were presented with cooperative problem-solving tasks using the design thinking steps as an organizing principle. Grouping strategies were made to maximize interactions for at least one U.S. student to work with a pair of Japanese students. Workbooks with graphic organizers were used for both American and Japanese students to undergo the flow of activities in English with careful attention to scaffolding and interactions. The youth development tool “search and sign bingo” from the Peace Corps Manual for English Practice Activities was used for student introductions (Krizay, 2015). Next, a key activity was sourced from the intercultural learning tool “Ecotonos” (Saphiere, 1995; Bücker & Korzilius, 2015) for the simple design task, which was to build either a paper airplane or a bridge as a group. A worksheet based on the creativity tool “SCAMPER” (Reisman, Keiser, & Otti, 2016) was included to encourage divergent thinking. Subsequently, a short lecture introduced the innovative practices of the design studio of a major Japan-based automaker local to the region, focusing on the integration of Japanese craftsmanship into industrial products. A worksheet connecting Japanese design concepts was included to stimulate discussion from the Japanese university students to communicate about cultural concepts and Japanese kanji. Finally, the workshop challenged all students to work on a “glocal” issue. This was determined by the first author to be the detection and management of landslide disasters, which affected the Chugoku region and university campus in 2018, and resulted in the following objective: “Building upon your growing expertise as engineers and communicators, and working as a team, propose a design for one of the following tasks that you believe might contribute to improving our disaster preparation or response as a community. Remember to be creative!” This provided the context for students to communicate in English on a design to address this regional issue. Students were given the choice of one of the following three design prompts devised as the main activity: “(1) Design a sketch of a prototype for a landslide detection tool. Provide a non-technical description for your choices; (2) Design a guidance system for a communication plan in English to be used with non-Japanese residents during or after a landslide (e.g., transportation, safe zones). Give reasons from your group discussion; or (3) Design an improved hazard map for disaster preparation in English. Give reasons from your group discussion.” Engineering students, especially, took the role of offering technological solutions, and the English education students provided ideas for branding and marketing their design in Japan. Results For the results of the online survey, descriptive statistics, reliability, and correlational analyses were performed in JASP (Version 0.18.3), depicted in Table 3 . Except for dispositional optimism which indicated lower values of .65 and .62, the factor level reliability scores for the study variables exceeded conventional thresholds of .70, demonstrating high degrees of internal consistency (Dunn, Baguley, & Brunsden, 2014 ). Statistically significant correlational coefficients indicated support for convergent validity between the RDCA factors and strength-based constructs of life satisfaction (originality: r = 24; fluency: r = .29) and optimism (originality: r = .29; fluency: r = .31) but were unrelated to CAS (originality: r = .03; fluency: r = .05). Correlations for optimism ( r = − .12) and life satisfaction ( r = − .07) supported divergent validity with CAS. Table 3 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Study Variables in the Online Survey Variable ω α n M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1. Originality .94 .94 880 2.77 .92 — 2. Fluency .93 .92 880 2.77 .99 .85 *** — 3. Optimism .65 .62 880 2.90 .61 .29 *** .31 *** — 4. Life satisfaction .92 .92 880 3.57 1.58 .24 *** .29 *** .52 *** — 5. COVID-19 Anxiety .85 .84 880 1.17 .41 .05 .03 − .12 *** − .07 * — Note. N = 880; 426 males, 453 females, 1 not reported; M age = 36.21, SD age = 7.21. Originality and Fluency = RDCA mean factor scores, respectively; Optimism = LOT-R mean factor scores; Life satisfaction = SWLS mean factor scores; COVID-19 anxiety = CAS mean factor scores. * p < .05, *** p < .001 Structural equation modeling (SEM) and complex mediation analysis were performed in R (Version 4.3.1). The packages “tidyverse” (Wickham et al., 2019 ), “psych” (Revelle, 2024 ), and “lavaan” (Rosseel, 2012 ) were used to analyze the data, and “rempsyc” (Thériault, 2023 ) was used to visualize results. Using the robust maximum likelihood estimator, two models were fit to test the assumption that SWLS is predicted by LOTR but not RDCA, with age, gender, and SES as covariates, via a one-factor model for total RDCA (Model 1) and a two-factor model of originality and fluency (Model 2). The model fit results are displayed in Table 4 . In support of a two-factor model for RDCA originality and fluency as individual components in the mediation analysis, Model 2 indicated a better fit to the data: χ 2 (333) = 1,052.13; RMSEA = .05 [.05, .05]; CFI/TLI = .95/.94; SRMR = .03, according to common guidelines for model fit (Schreiber, 2017 ). Table 4 Model Fit and Comparison for One-Factor and Two-Factor RDCA Models with LOTR on SWLS Model χ 2 df χ 2 ∕ df p CFI TLI RMSEA [90% CI] SRMR AIC BIC Model 1 1,423.25 338 4.21 < .001 .92 .91 .06 [.06, .06] .04 50,266.94 50,701.29 Model 2 1,052.13 333 3.16 < .001 .95 .94 .05 [.05, .05] .03 49,905.83 50,364.04 Common guidelines a — — .05 ≥ .95 ≥ .95 < .05 [.00, .08] ≤ .08 Smaller Smaller a Based on Schreiber ( 2017 ), Table 3 . See supplementary material for detailed results. Regressions in the supported structural equation model (Model 2) indicated statistically significant, standardized parameter estimates for age ( β = -0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .003), gender ( β = 0.58, SE = 0.09, p < .001), and optimism ( β = 2.40, SE = 0.37, p < .001) as a direct effect, but not SES ( β = 0.11, SE = 0.07, p = .125), COVID-19 anxiety β = 0.09, SE = 0.16, p = .576), originality ( β = -0.08, SE = 0.15, p = .582), or fluency ( β = 0.16, SE = 0.15, p = .298). Mediation analysis of variable means was subsequently performed to determine the relative contribution of originality and fluency as parallel mediators for the association between optimism and life satisfaction in terms of indirect paths. Two-factor complex mediation analysis was performed in R using the package “lavaan”, with confounder adjustment set for age, gender, SES, and COVID-19 anxiety. Bootstrapping for the significance of the indirect mediation effect via bias-percentile corrected 95% confidence intervals for the parameter estimates was set for 10,000 resamples. Table 5 Mediation Analysis of Originality (M1) and Fluency (M2) as Parallel Mediators for the Association between Optimism and Life Satisfaction Defined Parameters Paths SE Z p b 95% CI ( b ) b * 95% CI ( b *) ind → x1 → m1 → y1 a11* b11 0.04 -0.70 .481 -0.03 [-0.12, 0.05] -0.01 [-0.05, 0.02] ind → x1 → m2 → y1 a21* b12 0.05 3.02 .003** 0.15 [0.06, 0.25] 0.06 [0.02, 0.09] ind → x1 → y1 ind_x1_m1_y1 + ind_x1_m2_y1 0.03 3.72 < .001*** 0.12 [0.06, 0.18] 0.04 [0.02, 0.07] tot → x1 → y1 ind_x1_y1 + c11 0.07 18.62 < .001*** 1.30 [1.16, 1.43] 0.50 [0.45, 0.55] Table 5 depicts results of the two-factor parallel mediation analysis. The results showed statistically significant total effects for optimism and life satisfaction ( b = 1.30, p < .001, 95% CI [0.45, 0.55]). The positive b path for fluency indicated statistically significant support for an indirect effect on life satisfaction ( b = 0.15, p = .003, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.25]). Surprisingly, the indirect effect for originality was low in magnitude, negative in direction, and not statistically significant ( b = − .03, p = .481, 95% CI = [-0.12, 0.05]). Bias percentile corrected 95% CIs excluded zero on for fluency only, suggesting factor specificity for this creativity-related construct mediating the association between optimism on life satisfaction (see our supplemental results and materials at the following repository link on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/u85he/?view_only=b83454e638704e409edc1cb52e20a3ca ). Results of the Student Workshop and Case-Control Comparison with Online Sample Students created numerous prototype designs choosing one of three prompts from the main design challenge task (Table 2 ). These included ideas for sensors to detect rainfall, machine learning algorithms to cluster information about hazard risk into meaningful channels, and smartphone apps to alert non-Japanese-speaking residents about landslide disaster updates. Students presented their ideas in English in stations as a gallery walk activity, where they could ask each other questions about their creative design process and how they achieved consensus about naming their prototype for the Japanese market. The results of the modeling of the online survey data suggested a two-factor configuration when analyzing RDCA scores in applied educational settings. The online survey data also provides a set of population-based reference values for means-based comparisons with adults in Japan. Similar to previous studies on creativity constructs in Japan, creativity scores from the RDCA total score and mean factor scores were numerically low, as shown in Table 6 . The design thinking workshop outlined in Table 2 was implemented with the Japanese version of the RDCA in a short questionnaire packet for feedback on the workshop’s effectiveness. Quasi-experimental comparisons of the scores at post-test using an independent samples t-test (Welch’s) in JASP revealed that mean factor scores of online survey participants for Originality were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural design workshop ( t (24.788) = 0.578, d = .110, p = . 569), but Fluency scores were numerically higher and statistically significant ( t (24.897)=-2.375, d=- .444, p = . 026), favoring the workshop participants (Table 6 ). Table 6 Results of Independent Samples T-test Applied to Creativity Factor Scores for the Eight-Hundred and Eighty Survey Respondents and Twenty-Five Emerging Adult Workshop Participants Study variable Online Survey Workshop t(df) p Cohen's d M SD M SD Total RDCA 2.77 .91 2.84 .74 -0.449 (24.902) .657 -0.084 Originality 2.77 .92 2.67 .78 0.578 (24.788) .569 0.110 Fluency 2.77 .99 3.17 .81 -2.375 (24.897) .026 -0.444 Note. Welch’s t-test was used due to the differences in sample size between groups. General Discussion Prior studies have indicated low levels of creative self-beliefs (e.g., Ishiguro et al., 2022 ), and cultural differences have previously been observed for coping efficacy (Ting-ji, 2011), motivating a focus on the Japanese context. While many studies from Japan and abroad have investigated relations between creativity-based constructs, none have measured fluency and originality with the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA), and few have connected these factors to other positive psychology constructs like optimism and life satisfaction. Furthermore, creative design thinking workshops offer a rich set of opportunities for students to engage in collaborative problem-solving as creative activities but have yet to be examined for contributing to differences in self-assessed creative beliefs in their fluency and originality in Japan. The present study (1) extended the nomological net of construct relations in Japan through correlations as measures of effect size for data from emerging and established adults; (2) scrutinized two factors of creativity operationalized within the RDCA framework as parallel mediators for the relationship between dispositional optimism and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic with standardized path coefficients; and (3) examined case-control mean differences for these two factors upon implementing an original, three-hour workshop based on intercultural communication and design thinking principles in a novel setting: education and engineering majors from a Japanese and North American university simultaneously collaborating in a physical classroom during a faculty-led trip to Japan. Our findings are detailed in the following sections with respect to the primary research questions. Research Question 1: Findings for RDCA Factors as Mediators for Optimism and Life Satisfaction Regarding our first research question, the pattern of positive correlations supported the RDCA factors as associated with levels of optimism and life satisfaction among adults facing the pandemic recovery process within Japan (Table 3 ). This represents initial convergent validity evidence for the context. Previous studies have indicated an indirect effect for creativity as a means of stress coping (e.g., Fiori, Fischer, & Barabasch, 2022 ), so we expected that both RDCA factors would be mediators for the relationship between optimism and life satisfaction. However, the empirical findings from our mediation analysis suggested that creative fluency, or being capable of generating multiple ideas and solutions, but not originality, or coming up with ideas unique to oneself, was supported as an indirect effect (Table 5 ). The results of the modeling procedure for mediation analysis are depicted in Fig. 1 below. Self-assessed creativity has been associated with various well-being outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as adaptability (Orkibi, 2021 ), positive coping (Tang et al., 2021 ; Fiori, Fischer, & Barabasch, 2022 ), and mental health (Abdul Kadir & Rusyda, 2022 ). Our observation of factor specificity suggests that certain domains of creativity might be linked more with benefits to positive psychological functioning than others. Additionally, the RDCA factors were not associated with COVID-19 anxiety. These findings, while correlational and based on a single cross-section, offer support for the general observation that generating creative solutions to challenging situations might be related to maintaining satisfaction with life as a positive coping response to the disruptive effects of the pandemic. Research Question 2: Findings on Workshop Development and Case-Control Comparison with Online Survey Scores Creativity is increasingly recognized as a key outcome of youth development, but few youth programs have been tested with an explicit focus on enhancing creative self-beliefs in Japan. We developed a three-hour workshop for these purposes (Table 2 ). Upon engaging in our educational workshop organized around design thinking principles, we expected that average factor scores for both Fluency and Originality would be higher than averages in our online survey as a sample of the population in Japan. This comparison was made on the basis of a case-control design, where survey participants who were not exposed to the workshop were compared with the post-test of a local context of application. Contrary to our expectation, the results of the t-test for group mean differences supported a higher tendency for only creative fluency rather than for both of the RDCA factors. This result might reflect the focus on divergent thinking in the activities, spontaneous interactions, and content of the workshop. We consider this finding a promising first step for tracking the change sensitivity of the RDCA factor, as well as a potential approach to addressing low levels of creative self-beliefs that have been reported (Ishiguro et al., 2024 ). While the groups collectively came up with as many as a dozen prototype designs for the main task challenge, it could have been the case that our English education students felt that major parts of the design process were being tackled by the engineering major students. Hence, their originality factor scores could have been on the lower side in terms of intercultural learning-related classroom factors like turn-taking. Supplemental data of free comment feedback responses (transcribed and translated into English) also suggested that the workshop could conclude with short presentations by each group in front of the whole class in order to give Japanese university students a chance to verbalize and summarize their experience and creative proposals. Authors (2023) also report on the American student feedback in detail, and some comments mentioned that the workshop could be optimized by focusing on fewer activities and more design time. This might provide the Japanese users of English with more opportunities to engage with their own originality in the design tasks. More research on the workshop is necessary to examine ways to improve creative self-beliefs, but overall, we developed a new form of brief-session creative educational program for adolescents and emerging adults that can be used in intercultural settings. Limitations and Future Directions This study relies on self-reported creativity measures applied within observational and quasi-experimental research designs. Psychometric instruments can capture unique sources of information related to creative ability (Kaufman, 2019 ), but their construct span is limited, and items could be susceptible to the effects of response biases. We also did not perform a rubric-based assessment of originality for the prototypes designed by students. Future research should use multiple methods to assess creativity and subjective well-being with research designs that can account for baseline characteristics in online surveys (e.g., cross-lagged panel methods across waves or other longitudinal approaches) and workshop evaluation (e.g., delayed post-test). Studies might also manipulate and compare the instructional elements of the intercultural learning and design thinking-based processes to understand ways to optimize scaffolding. It is important to note that reliability estimates for the LOT-R were lower than conventional cutoffs, suggesting that researchers further explore the psychometric properties of the instrument in this context. Furthermore, while creativity is commonly measured in terms of individual differences in traits and tendencies upon performing complex behavioral tasks, operationalizations of creativity also vary in step with advances in empirical research methods used in human neuroscience. A key framework proposed for research on creative cognition emphasizes the integration of approaches that capture memory, attention, and cognitive control processes (Benedek & Fink, 2019 ; see flexible cognitive control modulation of creative individuals in Zabelina & Robinson, 2010 ; broad retrieval ability and verbal fluency measures in Silvia, Beaty, & Nusbaum, 2013). Relatedly, findings supporting the dynamic interplay of thinking modes have included functional neuroimaging studies (Vartanian, 2022), brain connectivity related to the default mode network (Beaty et al., 2016 ; 2018 ; Shofty et al., 2022 ), alpha synchronization measured via EEG (Benedek et al., 2011), internally directed eye movements during the process of creative cognition (Benedek et al., 2017; Annerer-Walcher et al., 2020), and Q-learning-based computational modeling, whose parameters from mood-referenced decision-making suggested a contribution for creative processes in risk-taking, observed via updating (Harada, 2021 ). Future studies could incorporate the RDCA at the factor score level to determine domain-specific connections to these forms of indices derived from behavioral methods and neurophysiological techniques. Conclusion Despite their importance as a developmental outcome for youth, creative self-beliefs are low in Japan and their basic characteristics remained unclear. This study provides empirical support for the use of the RDCA as a measure of creativity in the context of Japan, indicating psychometric quality and applicability to educational settings. While we expected moderately positive effect sizes for both RDCA factors, mediation analysis revealed unique support for the RDCA factor of fluency ( β = 0.15, p = .003) over originality ( β =-0.03, p = .481) in the association between optimism and life satisfaction. A case-control comparison revealed that mean factor scores of survey participants for originality were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural workshop ( d = .110, p = . 569), but Fluency scores were numerically higher and statistically significant ( d=- .444, p = . 026), favoring the workshop participants. These findings suggest that the specific creative tendency to generate many ideas might be relevant to well-being outcomes and could be shaped by programs in higher educational settings, though longitudinal studies remain to determine the duration of these effects. We hope that youth development researchers might consider the activities or format of the original workshop we developed (“Partnerships in Creative Communication”) in their repertoire of programs or instructional design choices with similar aims. Declarations This study was approved by the Ethical Research Committee, [Institution Name Blinded for Review] (approval number: 20200111). All participants gave their informed consent to take part in the survey and workshop and consented to the use of the data for academic publications. Competing Interests Statement The authors declare no conflict of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding Statement This research project was supported by a collaborative research grant awarded to S.H. by Hiroshima University and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant Nos. 21K13054 and 23K20484 awarded to R.S.K. Contributing Roles Taxonomy RSK: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing; SU: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing; BRW: Investigation, Writing – review & editing; SH: Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. All authors agreed to the manuscript content, authorship roles, and the order of authors. 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A meta-analysis of empirical studies. Frontiers in Psychology. 2024 Feb 15;15:1287082. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 20 Feb, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 18 Feb, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 13 Feb, 2025 First submitted to journal 10 Feb, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6000848","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":415316030,"identity":"c38a4745-4bd1-466f-8e0d-00f9f79e5cbd","order_by":0,"name":"Russell Sarwar Kabir","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA9klEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACCQYehgMMFQd4gGw2hgS4OA8hLWdI1cLA2HaAAayFKCDZfvbg4cp5d2TM29ufPXiYY8dgcID54QcGmTs4tUjz5CUcPLvtGY/MmTPmBonbkoFa2IyBdj/DqUWOIcfgYOO2wzwSEjlsEonbmOs3HGAwA/rlMG4t/G+AWuaAtKQ/A2qpB9rC/g2vFmkJkC0NIC0JZkAth4FaePDbIjnjXcLBhmNALTxnQFqOM0ge5imWSMDjF4nzuYc/NtQctpdgb38m+XNbNQPf8faNHz724A4xLIAZiBN7DpCiBQx+kK5lFIyCUTAKhi0AAF3RVMfSM6IBAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Hiroshima University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Russell","middleName":"Sarwar","lastName":"Kabir","suffix":""},{"id":415316031,"identity":"688472fd-e541-4e13-a732-269311fdd9db","order_by":1,"name":"Soshi Uehara","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Hiroshima University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Soshi","middleName":"","lastName":"Uehara","suffix":""},{"id":415316032,"identity":"97682b0f-a7e6-4d9b-857f-9c5906eab49c","order_by":2,"name":"Brett Raymond Walter","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Hiroshima University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Brett","middleName":"Raymond","lastName":"Walter","suffix":""},{"id":415316033,"identity":"3b36dba8-f774-4261-9c9d-f3c31ab3022e","order_by":3,"name":"Shogo Hihara","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Matsuyama University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Shogo","middleName":"","lastName":"Hihara","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-02-10 16:23:19","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":77034598,"identity":"fe336c4e-878b-4ffc-8d4b-5a1ed4f91ea8","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-02-24 12:56:30","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":53004,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVisual Depiction of the Unstandardized Coefficients from the Mediation Analysis Indicating Supporting Path for Fluency Relative to Originality\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6000848/v1/c65fa82a7f6d8368114213d5.png"},{"id":77035780,"identity":"c3e4ab0a-d653-4aed-a879-d5a39d64cf4e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-02-24 13:12:31","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1236130,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6000848/v1/cb59816f-37c0-4718-9f04-e5578f844c58.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Self-Belief in Creative Fluency Mediates the Association between Life Satisfaction and Optimism Among Adults in Japan: Insights from an Online Survey and Case-Control Workshop","fulltext":[{"header":"Background","content":"\u003cp\u003eStudies have pointed to the impact of creativity on human development from multiple levels of analysis. Empirical research has aggregated findings from scales as large as the upward productivity of group collaborations tied to the relative output of applied innovations across sectors (e.g., via the number of artists and patents per capita in creative societies, Jackson, Gelfand, De, \u0026amp; Fox, 2019), to the everyday habits of behavior and mind evident in the life trajectories of eminent persons (Walberg \u0026amp; Stariha, 1992; Richards, 1993; Piirto, 2009). Human capital development research points to the upstream benefits of \u0026ldquo;creative potential\u0026rdquo; when fostered among children and adolescents (Walberg \u0026amp; Stariha, 1992; Lubart, Zenasni, \u0026amp; Barbot, 2013; Barbot \u0026amp; Heuser, 2017), and creative individuals have been shown to possess unique characteristics (e.g., robust semantic networks, Kenett et al., 2018; Kenett, 2024). \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA wide array of theories of creativity have been tested with self-reported and task-based measures (for review, see Kaufman \u0026amp; Glăveanu, 2021; for spreading activation theory, see Schubert, 2021). Robust meta-analytical support for the cognitive process of recruitment involved in divergent thinking and the close-ended insight found in convergent thinking have been shown in prior studies (e.g., Gajda, Karwowski, \u0026amp; Beghetto, 2017). While some aspects of the definition of creativity remain controversial, a standard has been established that emphasizes satisfying two key criteria: the ability to generate (a) useful and (b) original ideas (Runco \u0026amp; Jaeger, 2012; Batey, 2012). This definition was recently updated to distinguish between human-generated and machine-generated creative output (Runco, 2023). It is also reflected in the cognitive components captured by the construct of \u003cem\u003ecreative adaptability\u003c/em\u003e after a crisis (Orkibi, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotably, distinctions in the cognitive and affective factors for creativity as a form of problem-solving have been observed in prior studies (e.g., Tan et al., 2019). Even though creative thinking has also been disambiguated from related processes like mind-wandering (Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel, \u0026amp; Baas, 2010) and cognitive flexibility (e.g., Preiss, 2022), there are many unresolved issues with the measurement of creative constructs (Said-Metwaly, Kyndt, \u0026amp; Van den Noortgate, 2017). It is also important to note that not all instances of creativity are psychologically salubrious, indicated in prior findings on the \u0026ldquo;dark side of creativity\u0026rdquo; and its implementation known as \u003cem\u003emalevolent innovation\u003c/em\u003e (Hunter et al., 2021), as well as in the implications of the established association between divergent thinking and arousal (Lin et al., 2014). While creative problem-solving has been posed as a powerful method to enhance optimal development (Lubart, Zenasni, \u0026amp; Barbot, 2013; Barbot \u0026amp; Heuser, 2017), a lack of attention to social context was noted by researchers reviewing factors promoting or preventing adolescent creativity (van der Zanden, Meijer, \u0026amp; Beghetto, 2020). \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClarifying the relations between constructs might allow for greater scrutiny about the conditions in which creativity contributes to this enhancement, and whether those conditions are appropriate for scale or application to educational settings. The present study aims to (a) contribute to the validation of assessment tools to measure dimensions of creativity as a developmental construct in a diverse context, and (b) explore the role of workshop interventions to promote creativity among late adolescents and emerging adults attending institutions of higher education.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStudies Examining the Association between Optimism and Life Satisfaction\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContrary to the challenges with capturing creativity reported above, consistent determinants of life satisfaction have been observed across the lifespan (Joshanloo \u0026amp; Jovanović, 2021), making it a key outcome that reflects the psychological functioning of adult populations. Optimism is construed as a psychological resource that might act as a buffer for stressful events and situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, indirectly affecting subjective well-being (Gen\u0026ccedil; \u0026amp; Arslan, 2021) and satisfaction with life (Bohman, Eger, Hjerm, \u0026amp; Mitchell, 2023). Life satisfaction and having a positive outlook on life have yet to be investigated against factors of creativity during the pandemic. This intersection could provide new insights into the well-established statistical relations between measures of optimism and psychological well-being. For example, Oh and colleagues (2022) performed a latent growth curve analysis of the Rochester Adult Longitudinal Study, which examined changes and consequences for dispositional optimism among 984 adults over the course of twenty-five years. Interestingly, optimism was found to increase over time at comparable rates, and more optimistic participants engaged in behaviors that were associated with better physical health, higher life satisfaction, and higher purpose in life twenty-five years later. Similarly, numerous findings from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) national longitudinal study of health and well-being have corroborated the benefits of optimism for health (e.g., Lee, Chen, Mendes, \u0026amp; Kubzansky, 2023). \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor our context and population of interest, cross-cultural comparisons for optimism between the United States and Japan have also been conducted (Kan et al., 2014; Long, Lu, Walker, \u0026amp; Gallagher, 2021; Nawa \u0026amp; Yamagishi, 2024), finding lower levels of total optimism in the case of Japan. Notably, Japan consistently ranks low among developed countries on average life evaluation aggregated in the World Happiness Report (Helliwell et al., 2024). Annual national survey results by the Cabinet Office of Japan have reported a lower percentage of Japanese respondents who answered that they were satisfied or somewhat satisfied with life, compared to similar cohorts in Germany, Sweden, and the United States (Cabinet Office, 2020: Minagawa \u0026amp; Saito, 2023). This is an important indicator to monitor in aging societies like Japan as findings from the Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging, among others, have underscored the importance of higher life satisfaction as an indicator of physical health in older populations (Minagawa \u0026amp; Saito, 2023). In sum, the constructs of optimism and life satisfaction possess high degrees of validity and comparability across large-scale studies, especially through the predictive association between optimism and life satisfaction. Furthermore, reports from Japan have shown trends for lower levels of both constructs, inviting further description or examination of granular factors within the context (i.e., the relative contribution of constructs related to creativity within the association between optimism and life satisfaction).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResearch Findings on Self-Assessed Creativity from Around the World\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLess attention has been paid to distinguishing creativity within the nomological net of strengths-based constructs. To further scrutinize its components, one viable approach toward observing consistency across findings would be to integrate cultural (e.g.., Kwan, Leung, \u0026amp; Liou, 2018; Brown, 2024), cross-cultural (e.g., face logic endorsement in Miron-Spektor, Paletz, \u0026amp; Lin, 2015), and cross-national perspectives for their comparability across contexts (Lubart, 2010). To date, four studies have made efforts to capture individual differences in creativity between countries. Orkibi and colleagues (2024) observed differences in creative adaptability with 1,432 adults from Israel, the United States, China, and Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and found convergently positive associations between for the construct with creative self-efficacy, resilient coping, and reappraisal emotion regulation in all countries. Comparing differences in creative self-beliefs among youth and adolescents in India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, Dimitrova and colleagues (2021) found that nine items from an instrument known as the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) indicated high degrees of psychometric quality. For Latin American countries, Manrique-Millones, Pineda-Marin, Millones-Rivalles and Dimitrova (2021) similarly reported high reliability and comparable mean scores for creativity for the same nine items of the RDCA with youth and emerging adults in Peru and Colombia. Finally, a multiple regression analysis of the RDCA in a study of Malaysian emerging adults by Abdul Kadir and Rusyda (2022) supported moderately positive associations between creativity (modeled as a total score) with developmental asset-based measures of thriving and well-being factors from the mental health continuum. Together, these studies suggest that creativity is a resource observed cross-nationally via the RDCA, applicable to stressful situations, and salient as a long-term outcome for youth transitioning into adulthood.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResearch Findings on Creativity with Adults in Japan\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBroad social surveys of respondents in Japan report a lack of creativity at school, work, and in one\u0026rsquo;s personal life. Online survey respondents in the Adobe \u0026ldquo;State of Create\u0026rdquo; Study (2017) regarded Japan as the most creative country (34% of 5026 adults), but the percentage of Japanese who considered themselves creative was extremely low at a mere 13 percent (Adobe, 2017). Despite a national reputation for innovation, surveys of employees in Japan frequently report feeling a lack of creativity. In the Steelcase Creativity at Work Report (2018), only 29% of survey respondents from Japan indicated that creativity was required for their daily job, and 60% indicated a desire to be more creative in their job than they are now. An OECD brief by Cignetti and Rabella (2023) on creative thinking in schools suggested that Japan\u0026rsquo;s educational system is supported by training qualifications related to creativity but remains one of the few countries whose percentage of jurisdictions do not explicitly refer to curricula or learning standards for creative thinking in primary education (\u0026lt;25% of share of subjects; Cignetti \u0026amp; Rabella, 2023). According to a study on creativity myths by Ishiguro, Sato, and Inamizu (2024), relative to cohorts from Austria, Germany, Poland, China, Georgia, and the United States, Japanese participants reported a stronger belief in creativity as requiring a rare form of talent, that creativity is synonymous with being artistic, and that it is difficult to change one\u0026rsquo;s creativity (Ishiguro, Sato, \u0026amp; Inamizu, 2024),). A high rate of uncertainty about the responses was noted in their study on creativity myths and facts, as well as numerically low levels of self-rated creativity. Together with findings on general beliefs, these broad trends on the recognition of creativity in school and work settings highlight Japan as a unique context for observing self-assessed creativity among emerging and established adults.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCreativity constructs have been explored, compared, and even disambiguated in many studies from Japan. Yamaoka and Yukawa (2020) asked eight-hundred and sixty-five participants to complete a questionnaire covering trait levels of mind-wandering, divergent thinking, and mental health measures. The results of their regression analysis suggested that depressive symptoms (\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta; \u003c/em\u003e= .28, \u003cem\u003ep \u0026lt; \u003c/em\u003e.001) and divergent thinking scores (\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta; \u003c/em\u003e= .11, \u003cem\u003ep \u0026lt; \u003c/em\u003e.001) were statistically significant predictors of mind wandering frequency. Ishiguro and colleagues (2022) examined multiple methods of creativity measurement for creative potential production, achievement, and beliefs about creative personality and observed a positive relationship for divergent thinking (i.e., fluency and elaboration) with creative production in fine arts and achievement, as well as a moderating effect of creative personality beliefs within that association. Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Okada (2024a) developed and validated a Japanese version of the Short Scale of Creative Self (SSCS-J) with one thousand four-hundred and thirty-six Japanese participants and found strong indicators of psychometric quality for the instrument and suggested that it should be modeled unidimensionally. Their comprehensive validation also showed several indices of convergent validity against measures of general optimism (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .48, \u003cem\u003ep \u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01), optimism as a subscale of resilience (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .48, \u003cem\u003ep \u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01), subjective well-being (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .44,\u003cem\u003e p \u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01), personal need for achievement (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .42, \u003cem\u003ep \u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01), self-esteem (r = .49, \u003cem\u003ep \u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01), and Big Five personality traits (e.g., Openness, \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .61, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01). At the item level, Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Noguchi (2024) found support for the psychometric basis of indicators related to cultivating a creative mindset in Japan and showed a distinct correlation for SSCS-J scores as moderately associated with a growth (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .50, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) over a fixed (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= .01, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01) mindset. Finally, real-life or \u0026ldquo;everyday\u0026rdquo; creativity was examined in a study of university students and general adults from Japan by Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, and Okada (2024b). This study provided even more evidence of lower mean levels of real-life creativity from activities and achievements among Japanese individuals. Astonishingly, levels were approximately \u003cem\u003ehalf\u003c/em\u003e as high as those reported by Western and Chinese counterparts in their study. The fact that these studies have consistently found low levels of creative self-concept and output in daily life suggests that creativity constructs might be sensitive to change upon exposure to educational or recreational activities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn light of these findings, while many reliable and valid tools to measure creativity have been used with adults throughout Japan, studies have yet to implement the RDCA as an approach to self-assessment. This gap is important as the RDCA tool captures multiple facets of creativity as distinct sources of self-belief (i.e., distinguishing between fluency and originality of ideas). The RDCA approach to creative constructs is not necessarily anchored to an overall sense of creative self-concept (i.e., trait-like personal identity in the SSCS, Karwowski, 2011; Ishiguro, Matsumoto, Agata, \u0026amp; Okada, 2024), but reflective of the specific domains as factors. Similar to the SSCS factor of creative self-efficacy, the RDCA domain-based operationalizations of creativity might be more amenable to brief educational interventions. Prior research targeting self-assessed creativity levels through instructional design methods and workshops is detailed in the next section.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNeed for Design Thinking Programs in Education to Improve Creative Self-Beliefs\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven that creativity is an endpoint to youth development and mental health outcomes at the personal level, and that it provides cross-cutting, upstream benefits to communities and societies alike, the sector of educational management has an obligation to train human resources in Japan to engage with their creative beliefs through creative activities. Indeed, creativity is targeted as a 21st century skill that is desired for work settings to tackle global challenges. Efforts are needed to connect research on creativity between psychology and education as disciplines (Long, Kerr, Emler, \u0026amp; Birdnow, 2022). A meta-analysis of 135 correlation coefficients from 27 studies by Gralewskia and Karwowski (2019) suggested a weak-to-moderate association (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .23) between teacher ratings of student creativity and student divergent thinking abilities. In addition, a meta-analysis of 77 effect sizes from 19 studies by Zhan, He and Zhong (2024), who examined the effects of problem-solving pedagogy on creativity, suggested that student-discovered rather than teacher-determined problems promoted more creative stimulation and that grade levels were important moderators of the overall effect (e.g., elementary and university education level studies showed higher effects of problem-solving pedagogy on creativity relative to middle and high school level studies). Thus, while it is clear that teachers recognize student creativity and influence problem-solving abilities through specific pedagogical choices, it is often unclear to educators how or when creativity should be orchestrated from the viewpoint of instructional design. We surmise that educators would likely benefit from access to a repertory of activities, programs, or workshops that can be mapped to the format of their learning objectives and curricula.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToward this end, seminal work on the RDCA by Reisman, Keiser, and Otti (2016), and others, consolidated several teaching activities and organized them in terms of their most relevant domain(s) or dimension(s) of creativity. For example, instructions for \u0026ldquo;mindstorming\u0026rdquo; were offered to promote creative fluency, and the procedure for SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, or Reverse; Byron, 2005) was provided as a means to prompt divergent thinking. A comprehensive review on implementation points for the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) connected its components with warm-up descriptions for pedagogical choices by educators to include classroom activities like De Bono\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;six thinking hats\u0026rdquo; and elaboration activities that use a string with knots for students to \u0026ldquo;spin a yarn\u0026rdquo; to encourage thinking aloud in the classroom (Alabbasi, Paek, Kim, \u0026amp; Cramond, 2022). Others have used questioning activities in domains like second language learning (Yu, Wang, \u0026amp; Yuizono, 2023), but some methods in this context have been limited to task conditions (Smith, 2017) and, in other contexts, effects have been attributed to the characteristics of the activities themselves (Forte-Celaya, Ibarra, \u0026amp; Glasserman-Morales, 2021). In recent years, interdisciplinary teaching (Liu et al., 2022) and experiential arts education-based (Tackett et al., 2023) approaches have also been explored as innovative methods, covering TTCT and RDCA factors of creativity alike.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNewer efforts in education have sought to promote \u003cem\u003edesign thinking\u003c/em\u003e, whose principles ask students to (1) empathize, (2) define, (3) ideate, (4) prototype, and (5) test a product or proposal in an iterative cycle. This approach combines several methods from creativity research and teaching practices into a cohesive whole (see Darbellay, Moody, \u0026amp; Lubart, 2017). Design thinking has been formulated in the constructivist tradition (Pande \u0026amp; Bharathi, 2020), applied at the curricular level and evaluated with students in higher education (Guaman-Quintanilla, Everaert, Chiluiza, \u0026amp; Valcke, 2023), and even integrated into training for pre-service teachers (Calavia, Blanco, Casas, \u0026amp; Dieste, 2023). In Japan, online art workshops (Ishiguro, Natsukawa, \u0026amp; Okada, 2022), project-based learning (Ishiguro \u0026amp; Sugano, 2021), and team-based creative engineering education (Ishiguro, 2021) have been implemented but reports of design thinking workshops are relatively limited. Notably, Kijima, Yang-Yoshihara, and Maekawa (2021) conducted a three-day workshop to encourage 103 young females from several prefectures in Japan to pursue STEM education and observed modest but statistically significant gains in creative confidence. In addition, one study set a precedent for intercultural learning using an explicit organizing principle for Japanese students to work with non-Japanese peers in a scheduled educational setting. Over the course of a semester, Krutphong and colleagues (2023) conducted a series of design thinking workshops for Thai and Japanese STEM majors to come up with innovations that will contribute to progress on several Sustainable Development Goals. Together, these findings suggest the potential for design thinking as an organizing principle in instructional design and the need to both develop and evaluate brief-session workshops as educational programs to improve self-assessed creative beliefs and creative activities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Present Study\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe act of generating creative solutions to challenging situations has been tagged as a positive coping response to the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and is understood as an outcome of youth development. While many studies from Japan and abroad have investigated relations between creativity constructs, none have measured fluency and originality with the RDCA and few have connected these factors to those other positive psychology constructs like optimism and life satisfaction. Design thinking workshops offer a rich set of opportunities for students to engage in collaborative problem-solving as creative activities but have yet to be examined for contributing to differences in self-assessed creative beliefs in their fluency and originality in Japan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere, we extend the nomological net of construct relations in Japan through correlations as measures of effect size for data from emerging and established adults and conduct an analysis for the two factors of creativity operationalized within the RDCA framework as parallel mediators for the relationship between dispositional optimism and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, we examine case-control mean differences for these two factors upon implementing an original, three-hour workshop based on design thinking principles in a novel setting: education and engineering majors from a Japanese and North American university simultaneously collaborating in a physical classroom during a faculty-led trip to Japan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResearch Question 1:\u003c/strong\u003e Do the specific RDCA factors of \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e have positive, standardized parameter estimates when modeled as correlations and as mediators for the relationship between optimism and life satisfaction among adults in Japan? We expect that both RDCA factors will be positive in direction and moderate in magnitude.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResearch Question 2: \u003c/strong\u003eAre average factor scores on the specific RDCA factors of \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e higher than the average population factor scores after engaging in an educational workshop based on design thinking principles? We expect that RDCA factors will be higher for workshop participants than for a sample of the general population.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSurvey Participants\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survey data for Japan were collected as part of a large, cross-national project known as \u0026ldquo;International and Multidimensional Perspectives on the Impact of COVID-19 across Generations (IMPACT-C19),\u0026rdquo; led by the Research Initiatives Working Group of the American Psychological Association Interdivisional Task Force on the pandemic. The aim of the IMPACT-19 project was to create a repository of data, materials, and resources (Karakulak et al., 2023). A committee approach was taken to item translation for scales that lacked existing validations in the English and Japanese research literature. A native speaker of Japanese translated the items. These were back translated into English and subsequently checked and corrected by another native speaker of English and Japanese, respectively, until fidelity was achieved. During the period spanning from April to July of 2021, a total of 974 emerging and established adults in Japan (i.e., aged 18\u0026ndash;45 years; \u003cem\u003eM\u003csub\u003eage\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e= 38.12, \u003cem\u003eSD\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e= 4.67) participated in the online observational survey as a part of the international research project, which was undertaken to examine the effects of the pandemic on psychological attitudes and functioning. Visual inspection of the Japanese survey responses indicated missing and incomplete data for 94 participants for the measures of interest. Listwise deletion was employed, and a total of 880 participants provided complete data for analysis (426 males, 453 females, 1 not reported; \u003cem\u003eM\u003csub\u003eage\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e= 36.21, \u003cem\u003eSD\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e= 7.21). Parental and self-related highest levels of education were chosen as proxies for socioeconomic status. Relevant demographic information for the analytic sample is presented in Table 1.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSurvey Procedure\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParticipants responded to the online survey from a questionnaire link built in Qualtrics (https://www.qualtrics.com) after providing informed consent. Snowball sampling was used to obtain responses from emerging adults attending a total of two universities in Japan, one from the Chūgoku and Kyūshū regions, respectively. Established adults were recruited using the crowdsourcing website, Lancers (https://www.lancers.jp/), and employed a stratified random sampling strategy. This research service possesses one of the highest number of registrants in Japan. They received 440 JPY (about 4.0 USD) after completing the survey for their participation. This research project was approved by the Ethical Committee of [AFFILIATION BLINDED FOR REVIEW].\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 1\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSociodemographic Information for the Online Survey and Workshop Participants\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"101%\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCharacteristic\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 32px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eOnline Survey\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 39px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWorkshop\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGender\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Male\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e426\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e48.41\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e13\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e56.22\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Female\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e454\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e51.59\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e43.48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eJapanese nationality\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e875\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e99.43\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e100\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHighest educational\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;level completed\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; High school and\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; below\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.93\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e100\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Two-year university\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; degree\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e206\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e25.37\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Four-year university\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; degree\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e130\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e40.16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Graduate degree\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e462\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e92.72\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Other\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e65\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e7.40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHave children\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e336\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e38.18\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 27px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEmployment status\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Full-time student\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Full-time employee\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Working and studying\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Not in work or study\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Lost job due to \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; COVID-19\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Difficulty finding new\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Job\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Online business to\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;supplement income\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 13px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e135\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e354\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e74\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e63\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e64\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e219\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e14.60\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e38.27\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.36\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.81\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.73\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.92\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e23.68\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote.\u003c/em\u003e Multiple selections were allowed for the employment status item (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e=867). Two workshop participants did not report their gender. One workshop participant was not a regular student from Japan within the range of 18 to 29 years of age and was removed from the case-control comparison.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSurvey Measures\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eReisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(RDCA; Reisman, Keiser, \u0026amp; Otti, 2016). The RDCA is a self-assessment tool designed to evaluate creativity across multiple dimensions and domains in research on individual differences and educational interventions. The comprehensive 38-item version captures as many as 11 distinct factors of creativity. We translated and back-translated nine items from the two factors of fluency and originality used in previous studies comparing cross-national positive youth development (Dimitrova et al., 2021). Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from \u003cem\u003e1\u003c/em\u003e (\u0026ldquo;strongly disagree\u0026rdquo;) to \u003cem\u003e5\u003c/em\u003e (\u0026ldquo;strongly agree\u0026rdquo;).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLife Orientation Scale-Revised\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(LOT-R; Scheier, Carver, \u0026amp; Bridges, 1994; Japanese translation by Sato, Kawamoto, \u0026amp; Komiya, n.d.). The LOT-R is a brief tool to assess dispositional optimism, which is defined as the general expectation that good things will happen in the future. The measure consists of 6 items for optimism and pessimism. Participants respond to each item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from \u003cem\u003e0\u003c/em\u003e (\u0026ldquo;strongly disagree\u0026rdquo;) to \u003cem\u003e4\u003c/em\u003e (\u0026ldquo;strongly agree\u0026rdquo;).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSatisfaction with Life Scale\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(SWLS; Kjell \u0026amp; Diener, 2021; Japanese version adapted from Sumino, 1994). A short-form version of the SWLS was used to assess global life satisfaction. Taken from the original SWLS scale (Diener et al., 1985), this shortened version by Kjell and Diener (2021) includes the first three items of the original scale, as follows: in most ways my life is close to my ideal; the conditions of my life are excellent; I am satisfied with my life. The items are rated using a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCOVID-19 Anxiety Scale\u003c/em\u003e (CAS; Lee et al., 2020; Jovanović et al., 2023). The CAS was developed by Lee and colleagues (2020) and its psychometric properties were validated across 60 countries (Jovanović et al., 2023). The CAS is comprised of five items about responses to the coronavirus, namely feelings of dizziness, trouble falling or staying asleep, feeling paralyzed or frozen, losing interest in eating, and feeling nauseous when encountering information about the coronavirus. Participants are asked to rate the frequency of each symptom over the last 2 weeks on a 5-point scale with options, not at all (1), rare, less than a day or two (2), several days (3), more than 7 days (4), and nearly every day (5). This measure was included as a divergent validity check for the network of variables at the level of correlations and control variable in the mediation analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWorkshop Participants\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design thinking workshop was developed by three faculty members in early 2023 and held in the third week of May 2023. A faculty-led study abroad trip to Japan for 15 American students from a university in the South Atlantic region of the United States was planned and implemented by the U.S.-based faculty (see Authors, 2023). Most of the U.S. students were majoring in engineering. Their study tour included multiple visits connected to architectural marvels and sites affiliated with industrial innovation in Japan. Embedded in the trip were onsite visits to universities in the Chūbu and Chūgoku regions for expert-led lectures. The workshop in the present study details the program designed for the latter region, whose counterpart students in Japan were English education majors as an optional course supplement. A total of 26 students from the Japanese university participated in the full workshop. One workshop participant was not a regular student from Japan within the range of 18 to 29 years of age and was removed from the case-control comparison (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e=25 for the analytic sample).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 2\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eProgram and Workbook Flow of the \u0026lsquo;Partnerships in Creative Communication\u0026rsquo; Workshop\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"bottom\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDuration\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"bottom\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEducational Tool\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;and Design Thinking Phase\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"bottom\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eActivity Flow\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGetting settled in assigned room\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5-10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eArthur (2020)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIcebreaker using \u0026ldquo;1-2-3, Action!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePaired discussion on Japan trip experiences\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eYouth Development English Practice Activities in\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Krizay (2015)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Search and sign\u0026rdquo; bingo for Japan/America experiences\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e15 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;SCAMPER\u0026rdquo; Questioning Strategies in Reisman, Keiser, \u0026amp; Otti (2016)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInteractive Presentation on Creativity and Innovation Examples from Major Automaker Design Studio\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eB\u0026uuml;cker \u0026amp; Korzilius (2015)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePaper Airplane or Bridge Design Task from Ecotonos\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBreak\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5-10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEmpathize, Define\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDesign Thinking Presentation Overview\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Description(s) of Main Design Task and Brainstorming Challenge\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e45 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIdeate,\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Prototype [Optional]\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDesign and Discussion Time\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBreak\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e30 mins\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e[Test]\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eQuestionnaire Packet with RDCA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGallery Walk to Present Creative Proposals\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Odd/Even Numbered Groups [15 mins each]\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorkshop Procedure\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 1 depicts the flow of activities for the approximately three-hour workshop. Following materials like the Design Thinking Process Guide (Plattner, 2013), students were presented with cooperative problem-solving tasks using the design thinking steps as an organizing principle. Grouping strategies were made to maximize interactions for at least one U.S. student to work with a pair of Japanese students. Workbooks with graphic organizers were used for both American and Japanese students to undergo the flow of activities in English with careful attention to scaffolding and interactions. The youth development tool \u0026ldquo;search and sign bingo\u0026rdquo; from the Peace Corps Manual for English Practice Activities was used for student introductions (Krizay, 2015). Next, a key activity was sourced from the intercultural learning tool \u0026ldquo;Ecotonos\u0026rdquo; (Saphiere, 1995; B\u0026uuml;cker \u0026amp; Korzilius, 2015) for the simple design task, which was to build either a paper airplane or a bridge as a group. A worksheet based on the creativity tool \u0026ldquo;SCAMPER\u0026rdquo; (Reisman, Keiser, \u0026amp; Otti, 2016) was included to encourage divergent thinking.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSubsequently, a short lecture introduced the innovative practices of the design studio of a major Japan-based automaker local to the region, focusing on the integration of Japanese craftsmanship into industrial products. A worksheet connecting Japanese design concepts was included to stimulate discussion from the Japanese university students to communicate about cultural concepts and Japanese kanji. Finally, the workshop challenged all students to work on a \u0026ldquo;glocal\u0026rdquo; issue. This was determined by the first author to be the detection and management of landslide disasters, which affected the Chugoku region and university campus in 2018, and resulted in the following objective: \u0026ldquo;Building upon your growing expertise as engineers and communicators, and working as a team, propose a design for one of the following tasks that you believe might contribute to improving our disaster preparation or response as a community. Remember to be creative!\u0026rdquo; This provided the context for students to communicate in English on a design to address this regional issue.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudents were given the choice of one of the following three design prompts devised as the main activity: \u0026ldquo;(1) Design a sketch of a prototype for a landslide detection tool. Provide a non-technical description for your choices; (2) Design a guidance system for a communication plan in English to be used with non-Japanese residents during or after a landslide (e.g., transportation, safe zones). Give reasons from your group discussion; or (3) Design an improved hazard map for disaster preparation in English. Give reasons from your group discussion.\u0026rdquo; Engineering students, especially, took the role of offering technological solutions, and the English education students provided ideas for branding and marketing their design in Japan.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eFor the results of the online survey, descriptive statistics, reliability, and correlational analyses were performed in JASP (Version 0.18.3), depicted in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e. Except for dispositional optimism which indicated lower values of .65 and .62, the factor level reliability scores for the study variables exceeded conventional thresholds of .70, demonstrating high degrees of internal consistency (Dunn, Baguley, \u0026amp; Brunsden, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Statistically significant correlational coefficients indicated support for convergent validity between the RDCA factors and strength-based constructs of life satisfaction (originality: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = 24; fluency: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .29) and optimism (originality: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .29; fluency: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .31) but were unrelated to CAS (originality: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .03; fluency: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .05). Correlations for optimism (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = − .12) and life satisfaction (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = − .07) supported divergent validity with CAS.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c9\" colnum=\"9\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c10\" colnum=\"10\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c11\" colnum=\"11\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 3\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDescriptive Statistics and Correlations for Study Variables in the Online Survey\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"11\"\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVariable\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eω\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eα\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1. Originality\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.94\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.94\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e880\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.77\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2. Fluency\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.93\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e880\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.77\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.99\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.85\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3. Optimism\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.65\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.62\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e880\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.90\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.61\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.29\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.31\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4. Life satisfaction\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e880\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.57\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.58\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.24\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.29\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.52\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e5. COVID-19 Anxiety\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.85\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.84\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e880\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.17\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.41\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.05\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.03\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e− .12\u003csup\u003e***\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e− .07\u003csup\u003e*\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003ctfoot\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"11\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. N\u003c/em\u003e = 880; 426 males, 453 females, 1 not reported; \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003eage\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e = 36.21, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003eage\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e = 7.21. Originality and Fluency = RDCA mean factor scores, respectively; Optimism = LOT-R mean factor scores; Life satisfaction = SWLS mean factor scores; COVID-19 anxiety = CAS mean factor scores.\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"11\"\u003e*\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .05, ***\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tfoot\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStructural equation modeling (SEM) and complex mediation analysis were performed in R (Version 4.3.1). The packages “tidyverse” (Wickham et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR70\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), “psych” (Revelle, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), and “lavaan” (Rosseel, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) were used to analyze the data, and “rempsyc” (Thériault, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) was used to visualize results. Using the robust maximum likelihood estimator, two models were fit to test the assumption that SWLS is predicted by LOTR but not RDCA, with age, gender, and SES as covariates, via a one-factor model for total RDCA (Model 1) and a two-factor model of originality and fluency (Model 2). The model fit results are displayed in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e. In support of a two-factor model for RDCA originality and fluency as individual components in the mediation analysis, Model 2 indicated a better fit to the data: χ\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e(333) = 1,052.13; RMSEA = .05 [.05, .05]; CFI/TLI = .95/.94; SRMR = .03, according to common guidelines for model fit (Schreiber, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c9\" colnum=\"9\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c10\" colnum=\"10\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c11\" colnum=\"11\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 4\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eModel Fit and Comparison for One-Factor and Two-Factor RDCA Models with LOTR on SWLS\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"11\"\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eModel\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eχ\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003edf\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eχ\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e∕\u003cem\u003edf\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCFI\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTLI\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRMSEA [90% CI]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSRMR\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAIC\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBIC\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eModel 1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1,423.25\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e338\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.21\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; .001\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.91\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.06 [.06, .06]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e50,266.94\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e50,701.29\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eModel 2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1,052.13\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e333\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.16\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; .001\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.95\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.94\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.05 [.05, .05]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e49,905.83\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e50,364.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCommon guidelines\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e—\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; 2 or 3\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026gt; .05\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e≥ .95\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e≥ .95\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; .05 [.00, .08]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e≤ .08\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c10\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmaller\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c11\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmaller\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"11\" nameend=\"c11\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003eBased on Schreiber (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e. See supplementary material for detailed results.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRegressions in the supported structural equation model (Model 2) indicated statistically significant, standardized parameter estimates for age (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = -0.02, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.01, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e .003), gender (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = 0.58, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.09, \u003cem\u003ep \u0026lt;\u003c/em\u003e .001), and optimism (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = 2.40, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.37, \u003cem\u003ep \u0026lt;\u003c/em\u003e .001) as a direct effect, but not SES (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = 0.11, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.07, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e .125), COVID-19 anxiety \u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = 0.09, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.16, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e .576), originality (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = -0.08, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.15, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e .582), or fluency (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e = 0.16, \u003cem\u003eSE =\u003c/em\u003e 0.15, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e .298). Mediation analysis of variable means was subsequently performed to determine the relative contribution of originality and fluency as parallel mediators for the association between optimism and life satisfaction in terms of indirect paths. Two-factor complex mediation analysis was performed in R using the package “lavaan”, with confounder adjustment set for age, gender, SES, and COVID-19 anxiety. Bootstrapping for the significance of the indirect mediation effect via bias-percentile corrected 95% confidence intervals for the parameter estimates was set for 10,000 resamples.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c9\" colnum=\"9\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab5\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 5\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMediation Analysis of Originality (M1) and Fluency (M2) as Parallel Mediators for the Association between Optimism and Life Satisfaction\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"9\"\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDefined Parameters\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePaths\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eZ\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e95% CI (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e95%\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCI (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e*)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eind → x1 → m1 → y1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ea11*\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eb11\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.70\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.481\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.03\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[-0.12, 0.05]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[-0.05, 0.02]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eind → x1 → m2 → y1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ea21*\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eb12\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.05\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.02\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.003**\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.15\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[0.06, 0.25]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.06\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[0.02, 0.09]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eind → x1 → y1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eind_x1_m1_y1 + ind_x1_m2_y1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.72\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; .001***\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.12\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[0.06, 0.18]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[0.02, 0.07]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003etot → x1\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e→ y1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eind_x1_y1 + c11\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e18.62\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt; .001***\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.30\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[1.16, 1.43]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e[0.45, 0.55]\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e depicts results of the two-factor parallel mediation analysis. The results showed statistically significant total effects for optimism and life satisfaction (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 1.30, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001, 95% CI [0.45, 0.55]). The positive \u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e path for fluency indicated statistically significant support for an indirect effect on life satisfaction (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.15, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .003, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.25]). Surprisingly, the indirect effect for originality was low in magnitude, negative in direction, and not statistically significant (\u003cem\u003eb = −\u003c/em\u003e .03, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .481, 95% CI = [-0.12, 0.05]). Bias percentile corrected 95% CIs excluded zero on for fluency only, suggesting factor specificity for this creativity-related construct mediating the association between optimism on life satisfaction (see our supplemental results and materials at the following repository link on the Open Science Framework: \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://osf.io/u85he/?view_only=b83454e638704e409edc1cb52e20a3ca\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://osf.io/u85he/?view_only=b83454e638704e409edc1cb52e20a3ca\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eResults of the Student Workshop and Case-Control Comparison with Online Sample\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eStudents created numerous prototype designs choosing one of three prompts from the main design challenge task (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). These included ideas for sensors to detect rainfall, machine learning algorithms to cluster information about hazard risk into meaningful channels, and smartphone apps to alert non-Japanese-speaking residents about landslide disaster updates. Students presented their ideas in English in stations as a gallery walk activity, where they could ask each other questions about their creative design process and how they achieved consensus about naming their prototype for the Japanese market.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe results of the modeling of the online survey data suggested a two-factor configuration when analyzing RDCA scores in applied educational settings. The online survey data also provides a set of population-based reference values for means-based comparisons with adults in Japan. Similar to previous studies on creativity constructs in Japan, creativity scores from the RDCA total score and mean factor scores were numerically low, as shown in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe design thinking workshop outlined in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e was implemented with the Japanese version of the RDCA in a short questionnaire packet for feedback on the workshop’s effectiveness. Quasi-experimental comparisons of the scores at post-test using an independent samples t-test (Welch’s) in JASP revealed that mean factor scores of online survey participants for \u003cem\u003eOriginality\u003c/em\u003e were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural design workshop (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(24.788) = 0.578, \u003cem\u003ed =\u003c/em\u003e .110, \u003cem\u003ep = .\u003c/em\u003e569), but \u003cem\u003eFluency\u003c/em\u003e scores were numerically higher and statistically significant (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(24.897)=-2.375, \u003cem\u003ed=-\u003c/em\u003e.444, \u003cem\u003ep = .\u003c/em\u003e026), favoring the workshop participants (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab6\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 6\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eResults of Independent Samples T-test Applied to Creativity Factor Scores for the Eight-Hundred and Eighty Survey Respondents and Twenty-Five Emerging Adult Workshop Participants\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eStudy variable\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c3\" namest=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOnline Survey\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eWorkshop\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003et(df)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCohen's \u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTotal RDCA\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.77\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.91\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.84\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.74\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.449\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(24.902)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.657\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.084\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOriginality\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.77\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.67\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.78\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.578\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(24.788)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.569\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.110\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFluency\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.77\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.99\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.17\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.81\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-2.375\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(24.897)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e.026\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.444\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003ctfoot\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"8\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote.\u003c/em\u003e Welch’s t-test was used due to the differences in sample size between groups.\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tfoot\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e "},{"header":"General Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003ePrior studies have indicated low levels of creative self-beliefs (e.g., Ishiguro et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), and cultural differences have previously been observed for coping efficacy (Ting-ji, 2011), motivating a focus on the Japanese context. While many studies from Japan and abroad have investigated relations between creativity-based constructs, none have measured fluency and originality with the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA), and few have connected these factors to other positive psychology constructs like optimism and life satisfaction. Furthermore, creative design thinking workshops offer a rich set of opportunities for students to engage in collaborative problem-solving as creative activities but have yet to be examined for contributing to differences in self-assessed creative beliefs in their fluency and originality in Japan.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe present study (1) extended the nomological net of construct relations in Japan through correlations as measures of effect size for data from emerging and established adults; (2) scrutinized two factors of creativity operationalized within the RDCA framework as parallel mediators for the relationship between dispositional optimism and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic with standardized path coefficients; and (3) examined case-control mean differences for these two factors upon implementing an original, three-hour workshop based on intercultural communication and design thinking principles in a novel setting: education and engineering majors from a Japanese and North American university simultaneously collaborating in a physical classroom during a faculty-led trip to Japan. Our findings are detailed in the following sections with respect to the primary research questions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eResearch Question 1: Findings for RDCA Factors as Mediators for Optimism and Life Satisfaction\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eRegarding our first research question, the pattern of positive correlations supported the RDCA factors as associated with levels of optimism and life satisfaction among adults facing the pandemic recovery process within Japan (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). This represents initial convergent validity evidence for the context. Previous studies have indicated an indirect effect for creativity as a means of stress coping (e.g., Fiori, Fischer, \u0026amp; Barabasch, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), so we expected that both RDCA factors would be mediators for the relationship between optimism and life satisfaction. However, the empirical findings from our mediation analysis suggested that creative fluency, or being capable of generating multiple ideas and solutions, but not originality, or coming up with ideas unique to oneself, was supported as an indirect effect (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e). The results of the modeling procedure for mediation analysis are depicted in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e below.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelf-assessed creativity has been associated with various well-being outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as adaptability (Orkibi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), positive coping (Tang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR65\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Fiori, Fischer, \u0026amp; Barabasch, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), and mental health (Abdul Kadir \u0026amp; Rusyda, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Our observation of factor specificity suggests that certain domains of creativity might be linked more with benefits to positive psychological functioning than others. Additionally, the RDCA factors were not associated with COVID-19 anxiety. These findings, while correlational and based on a single cross-section, offer support for the general observation that generating creative solutions to challenging situations might be related to maintaining satisfaction with life as a positive coping response to the disruptive effects of the pandemic.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eResearch Question 2: Findings on Workshop Development and Case-Control Comparison with Online Survey Scores\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eCreativity is increasingly recognized as a key outcome of youth development, but few youth programs have been tested with an explicit focus on enhancing creative self-beliefs in Japan. We developed a three-hour workshop for these purposes (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). Upon engaging in our educational workshop organized around design thinking principles, we expected that average factor scores for both Fluency and Originality would be higher than averages in our online survey as a sample of the population in Japan. This comparison was made on the basis of a case-control design, where survey participants who were not exposed to the workshop were compared with the post-test of a local context of application. Contrary to our expectation, the results of the t-test for group mean differences supported a higher tendency for only creative fluency rather than for both of the RDCA factors. This result might reflect the focus on divergent thinking in the activities, spontaneous interactions, and content of the workshop. We consider this finding a promising first step for tracking the change sensitivity of the RDCA factor, as well as a potential approach to addressing low levels of creative self-beliefs that have been reported (Ishiguro et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile the groups collectively came up with as many as a dozen prototype designs for the main task challenge, it could have been the case that our English education students felt that major parts of the design process were being tackled by the engineering major students. Hence, their originality factor scores could have been on the lower side in terms of intercultural learning-related classroom factors like turn-taking. Supplemental data of free comment feedback responses (transcribed and translated into English) also suggested that the workshop could conclude with short presentations by each group in front of the whole class in order to give Japanese university students a chance to verbalize and summarize their experience and creative proposals. Authors (2023) also report on the American student feedback in detail, and some comments mentioned that the workshop could be optimized by focusing on fewer activities and more design time. This might provide the Japanese users of English with more opportunities to engage with their own originality in the design tasks. More research on the workshop is necessary to examine ways to improve creative self-beliefs, but overall, we developed a new form of brief-session creative educational program for adolescents and emerging adults that can be used in intercultural settings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eLimitations and Future Directions\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study relies on self-reported creativity measures applied within observational and quasi-experimental research designs. Psychometric instruments can capture unique sources of information related to creative ability (Kaufman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), but their construct span is limited, and items could be susceptible to the effects of response biases. We also did not perform a rubric-based assessment of originality for the prototypes designed by students. Future research should use multiple methods to assess creativity and subjective well-being with research designs that can account for baseline characteristics in online surveys (e.g., cross-lagged panel methods across waves or other longitudinal approaches) and workshop evaluation (e.g., delayed post-test). Studies might also manipulate and compare the instructional elements of the intercultural learning and design thinking-based processes to understand ways to optimize scaffolding. It is important to note that reliability estimates for the LOT-R were lower than conventional cutoffs, suggesting that researchers further explore the psychometric properties of the instrument in this context.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, while creativity is commonly measured in terms of individual differences in traits and tendencies upon performing complex behavioral tasks, operationalizations of creativity also vary in step with advances in empirical research methods used in human neuroscience. A key framework proposed for research on creative cognition emphasizes the integration of approaches that capture memory, attention, and cognitive control processes (Benedek \u0026amp; Fink, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; see flexible cognitive control modulation of creative individuals in Zabelina \u0026amp; Robinson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR73\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; broad retrieval ability and verbal fluency measures in Silvia, Beaty, \u0026amp; Nusbaum, 2013). Relatedly, findings supporting the dynamic interplay of thinking modes have included functional neuroimaging studies (Vartanian, 2022), brain connectivity related to the default mode network (Beaty et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Shofty et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), alpha synchronization measured via EEG (Benedek et al., 2011), internally directed eye movements during the process of creative cognition (Benedek et al., 2017; Annerer-Walcher et al., 2020), and Q-learning-based computational modeling, whose parameters from mood-referenced decision-making suggested a contribution for creative processes in risk-taking, observed via updating (Harada, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Future studies could incorporate the RDCA at the factor score level to determine domain-specific connections to these forms of indices derived from behavioral methods and neurophysiological techniques.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eDespite their importance as a developmental outcome for youth, creative self-beliefs are low in Japan and their basic characteristics remained unclear. This study provides empirical support for the use of the RDCA as a measure of creativity in the context of Japan, indicating psychometric quality and applicability to educational settings. While we expected moderately positive effect sizes for both RDCA factors, mediation analysis revealed unique support for the RDCA factor of \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.15, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.003) over \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e=-0.03, \u003cem\u003ep\u0026thinsp;=\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;.481) in the association between optimism and life satisfaction. A case-control comparison revealed that mean factor scores of survey participants for \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural workshop (\u003cem\u003ed\u0026thinsp;=\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;.110, \u003cem\u003ep\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.\u003c/em\u003e569), but \u003cem\u003eFluency\u003c/em\u003e scores were numerically higher and statistically significant (\u003cem\u003ed=-\u003c/em\u003e.444, \u003cem\u003ep\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.\u003c/em\u003e026), favoring the workshop participants. These findings suggest that the specific creative tendency to generate many ideas might be relevant to well-being outcomes and could be shaped by programs in higher educational settings, though longitudinal studies remain to determine the duration of these effects. We hope that youth development researchers might consider the activities or format of the original workshop we developed (\u0026ldquo;Partnerships in Creative Communication\u0026rdquo;) in their repertoire of programs or instructional design choices with similar aims.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study was approved by the Ethical Research Committee, [Institution Name Blinded for Review] (approval number: 20200111). All participants gave their informed consent to take part in the survey and workshop and consented to the use of the data for academic publications.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting Interests Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no conflict of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis research project was supported by a collaborative research grant awarded to S.H. by Hiroshima University and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant Nos. 21K13054 and 23K20484 awarded to R.S.K.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContributing Roles Taxonomy\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRSK: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing \u0026ndash; original draft, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing; SU: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing \u0026ndash; original draft, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing; BRW: Investigation, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing; SH: Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing \u0026ndash; original draft, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing.\u0026nbsp;All authors agreed to the manuscript content, authorship roles, and the order of authors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe would like to thank our student participants, research coordinators, translation assistants, laboratory members, and colleagues for their feedback on the survey and workshop development process. This study uses the Japan data we collected for the International and Multidimensional Perspectives on the Impact of COVID-19 across Generations (IMPACT-C19) Project, whose research collaborators and data managers we would like to acknowledge for their guidance and mentorship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData Availability Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData is provided within the manuscript or supplementary information files.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAbdul Kadir NB, Rusyda HM. Developmental assets, creativity, thriving, and mental health among Malaysian emerging adults. Frontiers in Psychology. 2022 Sep 6;13:944238.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAdobe. Adobe releases results of a survey on attitudes toward Generation Z in Japan. 2017.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAlabbasi AM, Paek SH, Kim D, Cramond B. 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Frontiers in Psychology. 2024 Feb 15;15:1287082.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"self-assessment, creativity, optimism, life satisfaction, design thinking, intercultural learning, creative fluency, originality","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBackground:\u003c/strong\u003e In the context of Japan, beliefs about individual creativity are low. Studies rarely account for multiple factors of creativity or provide brief-session applications.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMethods:\u003c/strong\u003e The present study (1) examines associations between \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e as distinct sources of variation in self-beliefs of \u003cem\u003esatisfaction with life\u003c/em\u003e (SWLS) and \u003cem\u003eoptimism \u003c/em\u003e(LOT-R) in an observational study design of national survey panel participants recruited during the COVID-19 pandemic (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e=880; 401 females; \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003eage\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e=38.12, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e=4.67), and (2) performs a quasi-experimental comparison of scores taken with emerging adults participating in a three-hour, intercultural creativity-based workshop featuring 15 U.S. and 25 undergraduate students from Japan.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResults:\u003c/strong\u003e Results indicated correlational support for the two subscales of the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA): \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003elife satisfaction\u003c/em\u003e: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e=.24; \u003cem\u003eoptimism\u003c/em\u003e: \u003cem\u003er=\u003c/em\u003e.29,\u003cem\u003e p\u003c/em\u003es \u0026lt;.001) and \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e (SWLS: \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e=.29; LOT-R: \u003cem\u003er=\u003c/em\u003e.31, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003es \u0026lt;.001). Mediation analysis revealed unique support for the RDCA factor of \u003cem\u003efluency \u003c/em\u003e(\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e=0.15, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e=.003) over \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eβ\u003c/em\u003e=-0.03, \u003cem\u003ep=\u003c/em\u003e.481) as a parallel mediator for the association between \u003cem\u003eoptimism\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003elife satisfaction\u003c/em\u003e. Case-control comparison revealed that mean factor scores of survey participants for \u003cem\u003eoriginality\u003c/em\u003e were comparable to creative self-assessments after the intercultural workshop (\u003cem\u003ed=\u003c/em\u003e.110,\u003cem\u003e p=.\u003c/em\u003e569), but \u003cem\u003efluency\u003c/em\u003e scores were numerically higher and statistically significant (\u003cem\u003ed=-\u003c/em\u003e.444, \u003cem\u003ep=.\u003c/em\u003e026), in favor of the workshop participants.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConclusions:\u003c/strong\u003e These findings suggest that the specific creative tendency to generate many ideas is relevant to well-being outcomes and might be shaped by educational settings for adults in Japan, offering implications for instructional designers targeting creative self-efficacy.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Self-Belief in Creative Fluency Mediates the Association between Life Satisfaction and Optimism Among Adults in Japan: Insights from an Online Survey and Case-Control Workshop","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-02-24 12:56:26","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6000848/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2025-02-20T14:43:53+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-02-18T16:49:12+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-02-13T12:27:03+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"BMC Psychology","date":"2025-02-10T16:18:32+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f644ee47-b738-47dc-a6f1-639183b7ce25","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 24th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-03-10T11:23:11+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-02-24 12:56:26","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6000848","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6000848","identity":"rs-6000848","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}