Resilient Profile and Creative Personality in Middle and Late Adolescents: A Validation Study of the Italian-RASP

Abstract

This study analyzed the relationship between resilient profile and creative personality in a large sample of 749 Italian middle and late adolescents recruited from six Public High Schools in East Sicily (Italy). As corollary, it was investigated the validity of the Resiliency Attitudes and Skills Profile (Italian-RASP) by means of principal components factorial analysis (PCA) and its reliability by calculating Cronbach’s alpha. We administered, in a small group setting, the following measures: 1) the RASP (Hurtes & Allen, 2001) to explore the characteristics of resilient profile; 2) the Test of Creative Personality (Williams, 1994) to analyze the four factors of personality named curiosity, preference for complexity, willingness to risk taking, and imagination. The PCA revealed the five-components solution of Italian-RASP as the better one than the others (with the 41,67% of total explained variance), obtaining the following components: engagement (21,14% of variance), adaptability (6,26%), control (5,30%), competence (4,71%), and sense of humor (4,28%). Results indicated that the more the adolescents were engaged, adapted, and competent in front of adversity, the more they were likely to be curious, complexity-loving, willing to risk taking, and to use mental images; in addition, the more the adolescents practiced their control on surroundings and used their sense of humor, the more they were likely to be curious and complexity-loving, and prone to risk taking. Implications for future projects centered on the effects of creative resilience on the positive youth development will be discussed.