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Impact of chronic physical activity on individuals’ creativity

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Abstract

There is growing evidence to suggest that physical activity positively influences cognitive processes. A similar trend is seen in the literature examining the relationship between acute physical activity and creativity. Nevertheless, certain questions persist: Does engaging in physical activity over an extended period (chronic) influence creativity? If it does, what is the duration of this impact? The present study uses Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) to examine whether chronic physical activity for 6 weeks can improve individual creativity vis-à-vis a control group that performs regular class activity without any physical activity. It also assesses whether the effect of chronic physical activity on creativity endures after 2 weeks of ceasing the interventions. The study involves 49 school students who were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control conditions. Their creativity, operationalized as divergent thinking is measured using the Alternate Uses Task. The measurements are taken before the intervention, again 6 weeks later, and once more, after 2 weeks of cessation of interventions. The results indicate that after 6 weeks of engaging in physical activity, the participants showed improvements in both the fluency and originality components of divergent thinking when compared to the control group. Furthermore, the results demonstrate a lingering effect of physical activity on the originality component of divergent thinking. The findings lend some support to the strength model of self-control. The implications for research and practice are further discussed in the study.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Funding

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Kamand, Himachal Pradesh, 175005, India

    Ashish Bollimbala

  2. School of Management, DC School of Management and Technology, Vagamon, Kerala, India

    P. S. James

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  1. Ashish Bollimbala
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  2. P. S. James
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Contributions

AB: conceptualization, investigation, writing original draft, methodology, and resources. PSJ: supervision, project administration, writing review and editing. The research was designed by all authors. AB conducted the research, analyzed the data, and wrote the initial manuscript. PSJ reviewed and revised the manuscript. Finally, all authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ashish Bollimbala.

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The authors declare that there is no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors declare a non-financial interest.

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The study was approved by the Internal Review Board of T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Letter dated 16th Nov 2017), and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Informed consent was obtained from the parents/guardians of all individual participants included in the study since they were minors.

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Bollimbala, A., James, P.S. Impact of chronic physical activity on individuals’ creativity. Psychological Research 88, 684–694 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-023-01862-4

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