en Health Promotion Health Promotion پژوهشي Original Article <div class="WordSection1" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height:1;"><span style="page:WordSection1"><b>Background:</b> Managing the academic and interpersonal demands of higher education requires effective emotional regulation. Emotional creativity, characterized by the capacity to experience and express novel, authentic, and adaptive emotions, is vital for student well-being. This study investigated the predictive roles of social intelligence and psychological hardiness in emotional creativity among university students.<span lang="FA" dir="RTL" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span><br> <b>Methods:</b> A descriptive correlational (cross-sectional) research design was utilized. The study included 151 students (103 females, 48 males) selected using convenience sampling from Ahvaz Petroleum University, Iran, in 2024. Participants completed the Emotional Creativity Inventory, the Troms&oslash; Social Intelligence Scale, and the Ahvaz Psychological Hardiness Scale. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and simultaneous multiple regression in SPSS version 26.<br> <b>Results:</b> The findings indicated significant positive correlations between social intelligence and emotional creativity (r = 0.40, <i>P</i> < 0.001) and between psychological hardiness and emotional creativity (r = 0.31, <i>P</i> < 0.001). The regression model demonstrated that social intelligence and psychological hardiness collectively accounted for 27.4% of the variance in emotional creativity (R&sup2; = 0.274, adjusted R&sup2; = 0.269, F = 58.23, <i>P</i> < 0.001).<br> <b>Conclusion:</b> Social intelligence and psychological hardiness are significant predictors of emotional creativity. Enhancing social competencies and fostering resilient cognitive frameworks can promote adaptive emotional processing and provide a foundation for targeted psychological interventions in universities.</span></span></span></span></div> <div aria-label="Page Break" class="cke_pagebreak" contenteditable="false" data-cke-display-name="pagebreak" data-cke-pagebreak="1" style="page-break-after:always" title="Page Break"></div> Emotions, Social intelligence, Psychological hardiness, Students, 0 0 http://jhehp.zums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-718-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Raziyeh Larki raziyehlarki@iau.ac.ir 100319475328460016846 0009000928666166 No Department of Psychology, Ahv.C., Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran. Alireza Heidarei arheydari43@gmail.com 100319475328460016847 0000000189743211 Yes Department of Psychology, Ahv.C., Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran.