Jones, Nicky; Jones Bartoli, Alice and Omigie, Diana. 2025. Character Strengths Afforded by Arts Engagement During Adolescence: The Development and Validation of the Creative Artistic Activities Strengths Affordances Scale (CAASA scale). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, ISSN 1931-3896 [Article] (In Press)

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Abstract or Description

Research into the impact of arts engagement on young people, particularly with regard to their well-being, is seeing ever-growing interest. However, it has been argued that methodological limitations, particularly a shortage of reliable measurement tools, may be undermining progress in this research area. Character strengths are established in the literature as a collection of positive traits—displayed through thoughts, feelings, and behavior—that are related to positive development and enhanced mental well-being outcomes. Motivated by the possibility that character strengths that are exercised during arts activities may, at least in-part, account for the positive well-being outcomes that have been associated with such activities, this article outlines the development and evaluation of a novel self-report questionnaire. Specifically, following exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis on data collected from two separate samples of young people, we present a final 15-item scale for measuring patterns of character strengths exercised during arts activities. Our scale, which comprises self-belief, social competence and curiosity and exploration, as key groups of strengths exercised during arts engagement shows reliability, convergent validity, and evidence of relative independence from trait-level measurements. Following presentation of the scale’s development and validation, the current article discusses key ways in which the scale can be beneficial in both research and practice: from helping to clarify the precise mechanisms by which arts engagement promotes adolescent development and well-being, to supporting arts educators and practitioners that have an interest in leveraging arts engagement in this way.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000591
Additional Information:	“©American Psychological Association, [2025]. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000591”
Keywords:	Character Strengths, Arts engagement, Adolescence, Wellbeing, Development
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 4 March 2023 Accepted 5 May 2025 Published Online
Item ID:	33529
Date Deposited:	19 May 2023 11:41
Last Modified:	20 May 2025 08:51
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/33529

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