creativity and mental health

the relationship between creativity and mental health and the extend to which different aspects of creativity (elaboration, flexibility, fluency and originality) could predict different aspects of mental health, was studied in college students. 248 subjects were selected as an available pool of subjects and they were given creativity, anxiety, depression, self-esteem and perceived stress tests. the results showed a significant relationship between creativity and different aspects of mental health, namely anxiety, depression, self-esteem and perceived stress. more specifically, creative subjects were less anxious and less depressed; they experienced less stress and had a higher self-esteem. more over, regression analysis indicated that only the originality factor of creativity predicted the depression and perceived stress scores. the results of anova on creativity scores of subjects from different faculties indicated that the subjects from the faculty of fine arts were significantly more creative than their counter parts in the faculty of literature and human sciences. keywords: creativity; mental health; fine arts; literature and human sciences students.