BERNARD L. HINTON

Personality Variables

and Creative Potential*

The development of valid and reliable predictive measuresof creative ability will represent a significant contribution forsuch areas as Research and Development, where creativeresponses are considered essential to effective job perform­ance, and Education, where early identification of creativepotential may facilitate its development. One approach to thedevelopment of the measures is the study of personality andability correlates of creativity. Although a number of research­ers have reported findings relating personality and abilitymeasures to measured creativity or creative problem solvingperformance (e.g. Barron, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957; Dentler& Mackler, 1964; Dervdahl, 1956; Garwood, 1964; Hitt &Stock, 1965) virtually all such endeavors have utilized dif­ferent criteria of creativity and most have assumed creativityto be a global ability or phenomenon, a concept whichoperationally seems to be quite useless, both because of itsscope and because of a general lack of agreement upon thedefinition of creativity.

Just as intelligence, or an I.Q. Score, is usually an inade­quate predictor of specific performance, so are generalizedindicators of creativity usually inadequate. Considerationmight, more fruitfully, be given to different kinds of creative

"The author's article "A Model For The Study of Creative Problem­Solving" appeared in the Spring 1968 issue of the Journal.

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CREATIVITYMEASURES

TheJournal of Creallve BehavIor

expression another may call for creative relational or mechan­ical expression. There appears to exist little, if any, evidenceto support an assumption that creative ability is generalizedrather than specific to particular kinds of tasks and/or taskrequirements. It seems most useful, therefore, also to con­sider factors of creativity in research designed to investigatethe relationship between personality and creative potential.Fortunately, the extensive work of Guilford has providednot only an empirical identification of a number of factoriallyindependent dimensions of creativity but also well developed(and easily administered) measures of these dimensions. Un­fortunately most creativity research is not reported in termsof suchdimensions.

The measures of creativity utilized in the research reportedhere were adapted from Guilford (1963) and consisted ofsupplemented versions of published tests. That is, additionalitems were generated directly comparable in several dimen­sions to those in the published form of the tests. This wasdone with the intent of increasing the reliability of the instru­ments. Analysis showed no significant difference betweenthe original and supplemental items.

Creativity (or creative potential) is thus represented byfour measures of performance, yielding six scores on theresearch instruments (tests of creative problem solving per­formance) where

1 = score on an "Alternate Uses" test, which measures afactor defined as "semantic spontaneous flexibility"

2 = score on a "Match Problems" test, which measures afactor defined as "adaptive figural flexibility"

3 = an "obvious" score on a "Consequences" test, a factordefined as "ideational fluency"

4 = "remote" score on a "Consequences" test, a factor de­fined as "originality"

5 = "Consequences, total" score (i.e., "obvious" score plus"remote" score), included because of the non-indepen­dent nature of the two scores

6 = total scorerLinear sum of scores one through four (ora composite creativity score)

These paper-and-pencil tests, the result of extensive factor­analytic work (see Guilford, 1963), were chosen primarilybecause of their ease of administration and their factorial

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PERSONALITYAND ABILITY

MEASURES

PersonaJlly VarIables And Creative PotentIal

independence. They appear to me to be the most reasonablesuch measures available today, and have been demonstratedto relate to actual creative"behavior.1

The personality and ability tests utilized were the StrongVocational Interest Test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Person­ality Inventory, the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Sur­vey, the Ghiselli Self-Description Inventory, a Test ofImagination (a Thematic Apperception Test) and scores onthe Admission Test for Graduate Study in Business (Edu­cational Testing Service).

Forty separate measures were derived from the above tests,thirty-seven measuring personality factors and the threeATGSB scores measuring ability factors. The specific scalesare,indexed as follows:

Index 1 to 7 = Strong Vocational Interest Test scores on thescales of: 1 =Engineering; 2 = Production Manager; 3 =Personnel Manager; 4 = Accountant; '5 = Sales Manager;6 = Pres., Manufacturing Concern; 7= Masculinity-femininity.

Index 8 to 20 = Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven­tory scores on the scales of: 8 = k, defensiveness; 9 = HS,hypochondriasis; 10 =0, depression; 11 =HY, hysteria; 12 =PO, psychopathic deviate; 13 = MF, interest; 14 = PA, para­noia; 15 = PT, psychasthenia; 16 = SC, schizophrenia; 17 =MA, hypomania; 18 = SI, social; 19 = ES, ego strength; 20 =DO, dominance.

Index 21 to 30 = Guildford-Zimmerman Temperament Sur­vey scores on the scales of: 21 = G, general activity; 22 = R,restraint-impulsiveness; 23 = A, ascendance-submissiveness;24 = S, social interest-shyness; 2S = E, emotional stability­instability; 26 =0, objectivity-subjectivity; 27 =F, friendli­ness-hostility; 28 =T, thoughtfulness-unreflectiveness; 29 =P, personal relations-criticalness; 30 = M, masculinity-fem­ininity.

Index 31 to 34 = Ghiselli Self-Description Inventory scoreson the scales of: 31 = SQ, supervisory qualities; 32 = I, initia­tive; 33 =SA, self-assurance; 34 =OM, decision making.

Index 35 to 37 = Test of Imagination scores on the scalesof: 35 =nAch, achievement need; 36 = nAff, affiliation need;37 = nPow, power need.

1 For other approaches to the assessment of creative abilities see thesummer, 1968, issue of Journal of Creative Behavior, Volume 2, Number3, which is devoted to this topic.

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RESEARCHSUBJECTS

DATACOLLECTIONPROCEDURE

RESULTS

The Journal of Creative Behavior

Index 38 to 40 = Ability measures on the admission Testsfor Graduate Study in Business (Educational Testing Service)for the scales of: 38 = V, verbal ability; 39 =Q, quantitativeability i 40 = T, total (general) score.

Data were collected on 226 Stanford University entering MBAstudents in the Graduate School of Business. After elimina­tion of those for whom incomplete data were collected andthose whose first language was not English, the sample sizewas 147. The attrition in sample size is distributed approxi­mately equally across the two reasons. An analysis of theavailable data from the incomplete sets indicates no signifi­cant differences from the data reported here.

The measures of creativity were collected along with the per­sonality measures.f on one occasion and in group format,except for certain of the personality instruments which weretaken home to be returned later. Non-return yielded, ofcourse, the incomplete data sets. The data on the abilitymeasures were secured from the Registrar's office. The datacollection was prior to the actual beginning of the aca­demic year and, therefore, no consistent bias is expected tobe present due to student adjustment. A favorable to neu­tral attitude regarding the research was generally expressed.

Following the collection and scoring of the data, simpleand multiple regression analysis was carried out separatelyfor each of the creativity (criterion) variables.

The research hypothesis states that certain personality vari­ables are related to the level of creative problem solving per­formance and therefore may be used to predict such per­formance. Of the forty variables considered in this research,previously listed, twenty evidenced simple correlation coef­ficients statistically significant at the .05 level or better for atleast one of the criterion measures." A multiple correlationanalysis performed on the data showed even stronger relation­ships. Presented in Table 1 are the R's (multiple correlationcoefficients) for a multiple regression against each of thecriteria variables. A step-wise multiple regression programwas used in the analysis to assure the significance of the con­tribution of each variable added.

2 The personality measures were in fact collected for another ongoingresearch project and the present author wishes to thank Dr. T. W. Harrellfor making these data available.

3 Tables and detailed statistical information may be obtained from theauthor.

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Personality Variables And Creative Potential

DISCUSSION In the analysis of the relationship of the personality vari­ables to creative performance twenty separate variables werefound to bear significant relationships at the .05 level orbetter, of which only three were significantly related to morethan one factor of creativity. That is, the variables relate

TABLE 1 Multiple Correlation Coefficients - Personality Variables

And Creativity Criterion Measures

Criterion Multiple R # variables in equai,

Alternate Uses .486 15

Match Problems .612 14

Consequences - Obvious .494 15

Consequences - Remote .517 13

Consequences - Total .487 15

Total Score .523 16

to the factored dimensions of creativity, but not to theglobal or summed measure of creativity. This finding lendsstrong support for the consideration of creativity as a set ofabilities rather than as a general ability or characteristic. Inother terms, personality and ability measures as predictors ofcreative performance seem to become more feasible as onebecomes more specific in the creativity criterion specification.

The "Match Problems" and the "Consequences - Remote"measures each had eight variables significantly related, twicethat of the next highest criterion measure. These two mea­sures also seem to tap the most unique or independentfactors. Of the specific ability variables related to level ofcreativity the highest was the "ETS-Q" score, which showeda correlation of .437. This is for the "Match Problems"criterion, and might perhaps be expected in view of the na­ture of the test and the factor (OFT or Divergent FiguralTransformations) which it measures.

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The Journal of Creative Behavior

The evidence thu1 indicates that certain personality vari­ables are significantly related to creative problem solvingperformance. The multiple regression analysis implies, how­ever, by the number of variables entered into the equa­tions that the relationships are quite complex and the inter­action effects between variables quite significant. Further,although quite speculative, one can surmise that any variablewhich significantly identifies creative performance in thisgroup would possibly produce much more dramatic resultsin a less homogeneous sample, given that the range of cre­ative performance observed in the experimental subjectsused for this research effort was moderately narrow.

A rather large number of variables are included in themultiple regression equations, giving rise to suspicion of alarge proportion of error. The computer program used toderive the equations, however, was set to reject introductionof additional variables where the partial correlation with thedependent variable partialed on the variables already in theequation is not significant.

Just as it is quite possible that different variables enter theregression equations because the criteria represent different(independent) factors which are actually related differently tocreativity, it may also be that the individual who possessesa high degree of one creativity factor does not necessarilypossess any other creativity factor to a significant degree.Such might be the case if the criteria are in the larger senseindependent factors, in spite of the fact that one mightintuitively expect a given individual who possesses a greatdeal of ability on one creativity factor to also possess similarability on others.

SUMMARY Although much of the research in the area of creativity hasbeen done on characteristics of the individual, little directcomparison of findings can be made because the same instru­ments or factors have not been used. Additionally, much ofthe research reported in the literature has used some singlecriterion of creativity such as nomination, patent applica­tions, and so forth, or a single criterion comprised of someweighted average of a number of task measures; whereasthis research has kept the various creativity factors separate(except, of course, for the "Consequences - Total" and "To-

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Personality Variables And Creative Potential

tal Score" measures, which are linear combinations offactors).

Apparently, as more knowledge about the requirementsfor creative productivity is accummulated, the more usefuland more relevant such information becomes. The con­ceptual model building work of Guilford, which has gen­erated the so-called factors of creativity used in this study,seems to be opening new possibilities for taking the predic­tion of creativity from the realm of the theoretical to somepromising pragmatic payoff. The results reported here, forexample, are encouraging, even though quite tenuous.

Examination of the data does show, however, as demon­strated by the contrast between the simple and multiple cor­relation analyses, that the same variables which show sig­nificant simple correlations are not necessarily those whichshow the strongest multiple correlations; i.e., certain combi­nations of factors seem to have some bearing on the oc­currence of creativity. In general, I have concluded that a re­lationship does exist between the personality profile and thecreativity of an individual, but it is a complex relationshipand a great deal more research will be needed prior to theidentification of any really stable profile relationships. Per­haps it is at this point in the analysis that the assumptionof linearity falls down most seriously. If the relationships arenot linear, then one would not expect linear regression toclearly identify them. Perhaps, too, personality profiles aredifferentiated according to the factor of creative ability beingmeasured.

Needless to add, creative potential such as measured herebecomes creative behavior only under favorable circum­stances: potential is a necessary but not a sufficient condi­tion for creative output.

REFERENCES BARRON, F. Some personality correlates of independence of judgment.1. of Pers., 1953, 21, 287-297.

BARRON, F. Some relationships between originality and style of per­sonality. Amer. Psychol., 1954, 9,326.

BARRON, F. The disposition toward originality. 1. ofAbn. & 50. Psychol.,1955, 25, 730-742.

BARRON, F. Originality in relation to personality and intellect. 1. ofPers., 1957, 25, 730-742.

DENTLER,R. A., & MACKLER, B. Originality: some social and personaldeterminants. Behao, 5ci., 1964, 9, 1-7.

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The Journal 0' Creative Behavior

DREVDAHL,]. E. Factors of importance to creativity. ]. of Clin, Psychol.,1956, 12, 21-26.

GARWOOD, D. S. Some personality factors related to creativity inyoung scientists.]. of Abn. & Soc. Psychol., 1964, 68, 413-419.

GUILFORD, I, P. Current summary of structure-of-intellect factors andsuggested tests. Report from the Psychological Labs, University ofSouthern California. Report #30, 1963.

HITT, W. D., & STOCK,]. R. The relation between psychological char­acteristics and creative behavior. The Psycho I. Rec., 1965, 15, 133-140.

Bernard L. Hinton, Associate Professor of Personnel and OrganizationalBehavior, Graduate School of Business.Address: Indiana University, School of Business Building, Bloomington,Indiana 47401.

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