Evaluating Creativity: How Idea Context and Rater Personality Affect Considerations of Novelty and Usefulness

According to the standard definition, creative ideas must be both novel and useful. While a handful of recent studies suggest that novelty is more important than usefulness evaluations creativity, little known about contextual interpersonal factors affect how people weigh these two components when making an overall creativity judgment. We used individual participant regressions mixed-effects modeling examine contributions ratings vary according context idea (i.e., relevant it real world) personality rater. Participants (N = 121) rated novelty, usefulness, from contexts: responses alternative uses task (AUT) genuine suggestions for urban planning projects. also assessed three traits participants: openness, intellect, risk-taking. found contributed among AUT projects, while projects ideas. Further, participants with higher openness intellect placed greater emphasis on evaluating ideas, but No significant effects were risk-taking trait.