The Order Matters: Asking About Creative Activity Calibrates Creative Self-Concept

Abstract

People tend to perceive and assess their own creativity in a positive, yet not always accurate, way. This study explores whether differences in self-ratings of the creative self-concept (creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity) are related to the sequence in which self-report measures are applied: the order effect. A randomly chosen half of a representative sample of Poles, contacted via a telephone interview, answered the items related to their creative self-concept first, followed by the items related to their previous creative activity. Another half of the sample completed these measures in a reversed order: The creative activity scale was completed first and then creative self-concept items were asked. The results demonstrated that people who were first asked about their previous creative activities reported a lower level of creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity than those asked about their creative self-concept first. Further analyses demonstrated that creative activity moderated this pattern: Participants without previous creative activity and those who engaged solely in everyday creative activities in the past, were susceptible to the order effect, but this effect was not observed among the participants with previous experience in art or science.