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  • European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education is published by MDPI from Volume 10 Issue 1 (2020). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by MDPI on mdpi.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with University Association of Education and Psychology (ASUNIVEP).
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  • Open Access

3 August 2015

Creativity, paranormal beliefs and cognitive impairment in the elderly

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1
Facultad de Psicología. Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación. Universidad de Murcia. Campus de Espinardo. C.P. 30100. Murcia (España)
2
Universidad de Granada (España)
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Abstract

In the case of older people, aesthetic thought and creativity are ways to keep mind and imagination active by contributing to prevent cognitive decline. Furthermore, having a religious belief system or even a belief system or paranormal experiences has proved to be beneficial for the health of the elderly. The objective was to study the relationship between creativity, degree of cognitive impairment and paranormal beliefs. The existence of differences depending on sociodemographic characteristics was analyzed. A group of 36 elderly people (16 men) aged between 66 and 95 years were administered the Mini-Mental State Examination (MEC), the CREA Test and the Paranormal Beliefs Scale. The main outcomes include that: those with better cognitive status are more creative; the less creative subjects had more traditional religious beliefs and even greater superstition; the elderly with better cognitive status were the least superstitious. It is remarkable that men were more creative, while women excelled in traditional religious beliefs. The study allows reflecting on the importance of professionals who work with the elderly to carry out programs to encourage creativity and even collect information about the belief system.

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