Creative Types and Personality

The present study aimed to identify types of creative activities and to examine which personality traits differentiate these behavioral types. Participants reported their activities concerning creative life-style, artistic creativity, and intellectual achievement. Also, they completed measures of personality traits concerning whole personality, emotions and motivation, cognition, social expression, and self-regulation. Five types of individuals were identified based on the profiles of creative activities in which they participated: conventional, everyday creative individuals, artists, scholars, and renaissance individuals. One set of traits distinguished conventional from other groups (traits general to different kinds of creativity) and another set of traits distinguished scholars from other groups (traits specific to one kind of creativity). Implications for the study of creative personality and development of creativity are discussed. Creativity was discussed from the outset of modern personality psychology: by such grand theorists of personality as Freud [1] and Maslow [2], as well as by such influential founders of trait psychology as Eysenck [3] and Guilford [4]. It remains a concern of many contemporary researchers as well [5-7]. Different kinds of creativity can be distinguished and personality similarities and differences among them can be examined [5]. Creativity is usually studied in formal domains of work, such as the arts, and the emphasis is put on understanding personal and social attributes related to creativity in a specific domain [5, 8]. At least three broad kinds of creativity are