Psychopathy and Openness-to-experience as predictors of malevolent and benevolent creativity

Abstract

This study examined personality antecedents of idea generation when pursuing either benevolent or malevolent goals. Specifically, 308 participants completed two Divergent Thinking tests. A malevolent divergent thinking test (MDT) in which participants generated ideas to inflict revenge and a benevolent divergent thinking test (BDT) in which participants generated well-meaning ideas. In addition, participants provided self-ratings of their Openness-to-experience and Psychopathy. Drawing upon the Blind Variation Selective Retention Combinatorial model, we proposed a dual pathway model, in which Openness-to-experience was hypothesised to relate to BDT performance and psychopathy was hypothesised to relate to MDT performance. Structural Equation Models were consistent with hypotheses. Openness-to-experience was related to BDT but not MDT whereas Psychopathy was related MDT but not BDT. We also explored facet-level and aspect-level models, which revealed some interesting insights. In addition, we provide four key principles underlying the development of our MDT test that can serve as a guide for the construction of future tests.