How do artistic creative activities regulate our emotions? Validation of the Emotion Regulation Strategies for Artistic Creative Activities Scale (ERS-ACA)

The article describes the planning and validation of a new instrument for measuring the different strategies of emotional regulation (ERS) in numerous creative artistic activities (like playing an instrument, writing, dancing and crafting artifacts). Using data from an initial pilot study (n = 740 adults, 80.4% women, average age 25-34 years) and a large scale internet sample (n = 47.924, 56. 7% women, average age 47.3 ± 14.6 years), the study confirms that creative activities positively influence our emotions. The ERS-ACA scale which was presented and validated has the aim of stimulating further research for the purpose of better understanding the effects of the arts on mental health.