A theory of creative expressiveness: empirical studies in Chinese universities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that the emotional expressions (i.e. emotional masking and emotional sharing) of students play in fostering positive implicit abilities, as indicated by learning, interpersonal skills and the ability to acquire a supervisor’s support. By introducing a new theory of creative expressiveness, the authors have further examined whether college students’ creative thinking is significantly associated with their emotional expression. Design/methodology/approach This paper establishes a conceptual framework to map the relationships between students’ emotional expressions, their implicit abilities and their creative abilities. Scale measures of these constructs were built, and a total of 400 questionnaires were distributed at universities in Hefei and Nanjing. Finally, ordinary least squares estimations were conducted to provide quantitative estimations. Findings The empirical results show that emotional sharing is significantly positive for college students’ implicit and creative abilities, while emotional masking is negatively related to students’ implicit abilities and creativity. Moreover, the effects of emotional sharing by college students on their creative abilities are partially mediated by students’ implicit abilities. Practical implications It is necessary to emphasize emotional sharing in education and to create a friendly atmosphere for students, in which they can feel comfortable expressing themselves in class. Likewise, students should learn to improve their expressive abilities, particularly how to express and share their inner feelings and emotions, since this will contribute to their creative thinking. Originality/value It is increasingly being recognized in organizational science that emotions and the way they are experienced and expressed by employees in work environments have fundamental impacts on work-related outcomes. However, limited attention has been given to the impacts of emotional expression on students’ learning performances and creativity abilities, especially in the Chinese context where students are more reluctant to express their emotions and ideas. Thus, by introducing a new theory of creative expressiveness to examine the benefits of emotional expression for students’ implicit abilities and creative thinking, the authors have sought to extend prior research on the cultivation of college students’ creative abilities.