The role of Creative Thinking, Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence in Predicting the Academic Stress of Gifted Students

Since high levels of stress have many negative consequences on students' academic future, so the present study was conducted with the aim of predicting academic stress based on creative thinking, emotional intelligence and mindfulness among gifted students. The research method was descriptive and correlational. The statistical population of the study consisted of all male and female high school students in gifted schools in Ardabil in the academic year 2019-2020 that 170 people (100 boys and 70 girls) were selected by cluster sampling. In this study in order to collect data from instruments, academic stress Zajacova, Lynch, & Espenshade, (2009), Welch and McDowell Creative Thinking (2002), emotional intelligence (EIS) (1998) and mindfulness (KIMS) (2004). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation test and simultaneous regression analysis. The results showed a significant negative correlation between the variables of creative thinking, emotional intelligence and mindfulness with academic stress of gifted students. The results also showed that creative thinking, emotional intelligence and mindfulness predict a total of 64% of the variance of academic stress in gifted students (p <0.05). Therefore, it can be concluded that by increasing creative thinking, mindfulness and emotional intelligence in gifted students, the severity of academic stress can be reduced.