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. Depersonalilzation 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 (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.