Effects of personality and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking

Abstract

This study explores the effects of the Big Five personality traits and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking in a sample of 82 UK students. Results showed that Openness and Extraversion predicted divergent thinking under both threat of evaluation and no evaluation, whilst Neuroticism correlated significantly with divergent thinking (negatively) only under threat of evaluation. However, mediational analysis showed that the effects of Neuroticism on divergent thinking under threat of evaluation were fully accounted for by Extraversion. Thus neurotics’ divergent thinking was significantly more impaired because they were more introverted. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.