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Relating Personality and Creativity: Considering What and How We Measure
Author(s) -
Puryear Jeb S.,
Kettler Todd,
Rinn Anne N.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the journal of creative behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.896
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2162-6057
pISSN - 0022-0175
DOI - 10.1002/jocb.174
Subject(s) - creativity , openness to experience , personality , psychology , big five personality traits , construct (python library) , social psychology , developmental psychology , computer science , programming language
Creativity is a complex construct that is conceptualized and measured in multiple ways. This study examined the relationship between creativity and personality taking this into account. It was hypothesized that applying different conceptions and measures would cause variation in the creativity–personality relationship. The participants ( N = 224) were undergraduate students and completed six creativity measures, a personality inventory, and a demographic questionnaire. Personality predicted more creative production ( R 2 = .277) than creative potential ( R 2 = .176) and more self‐reported creativity ( R 2 = .348) than that which was externally rated ( R 2 = .149). Openness was most consistently and strongly related to creativity, but other personality factors varied in their influence and some demonstrated suppression effects. Overall, the results suggest that despite relatively small effects of personality on creativity, there appear to be meaningful differences in the relationships depending on conception and measurement. Implications for educational settings and future research are discussed.