Creative Personality Traits Research Articles

The Adaptable Mind in Design: Relating Personality,Cognitive Style, and Creative Performance

This study examined domain-specific relationships between creative personality traits, cognitive styles, and creative performance in design. Design students (n = 39) completed the Adjective Check List (ACL) and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) to gauge personality and cognitive style, respectively. The ACL was scored using Domino's Creativity Scale (ACL-Cr) to identify creative personality traits. The sample also completed a design task that was evaluated for creativity using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). Findings indicated that participants showing flexibility between cerebral, limbic, right, and left modes of thinking had significantly higher mean scores on creative personality than did those who exhibited a more entrenched cognitive style. Creative personality traits (ACL-Cr) significantly predicted creative performance on the design task. While cognitive style (HBDI) did not predict creative performance, flexibility between styles was significantly correlated to the creative personality. In sum, individuals exhibiting adaptable thinking appear to possess the flexibility necessary to design creatively and potentially transform the domain with original and imaginative solutions.

Individual differences in creativity: personality, story writing, and hobbies

This study investigated the relationship between creativity and personality among college students from a variety of major fields of study. Indicators of creativity were ratings of written stories, lists of personal hobbies, and scores on the Creative Personality Scale (CPS; Gough, 1979). Personality was assessed broadly using the NEO‐Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1985) as well as measures of depersonalization, intolerance of ambiguity, faith in intuition, and problem‐solving styles. The results showed a positive relationship between openness to experience and all creativity measures. Moreover, high scores on intuition and extraversion were the best predictors for creativity as measured by the CPS. Story creativity was predicted by low scores on conscientiousness. Depersonalization was not significantly related to creativity. The results of this investigation confirm and extend previous research in demonstrating a close association between creativity and specific personality traits. Future research should clarify the nature of the creative personality across individuals of differing levels and domains of expertise. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Understanding, Measuring, and Enhancing Individual Creative Problem-Solving Efforts

Accumulated theories and research findings about the nature of the creative problem-solving (CPS) process, the cognitive and personality traits of persons who do CPS well, the measurement and evaluation of CPS, and the enhancement of CPS skills by training are reviewed with the aim of increasing understanding of and ability to measure and enhance individual CPS efforts. Given this review and analysis, a complete CPS process is understood to entail considerable convergent and divergent thought in continuing alternation. Other conclusions about the nature of CPS and the persons who do it well are set forth and discussed, and these conclusions are incorporated into a "matching theory" about CPS—which observes that creatively solvable problems vary in complexity, knowledge needs, and amount of divergent and convergent thought needed—and it predicts that problem solvers with different preferences and abilities, knowledge, and work plans will best match the needs of particular problems. Limitations in current concepts, methods, and resulting knowledge about individual CPS efforts are identified and discussed, and extensions of existing research as well as new directions for future research are proposed.