Creative Personality At Work

1. Creative Personality At Work Katya Stoycheva Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences Sofia, Bulgaria

2. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AT WORK I. Research approaches to the study of creative personality II. Findings on creative personality and work III. Implications for creativity in the workplace

3. CREATIVE PERSONALITY RESEARCH

4. CREATIVE PERSONALITY RESEARCH • The creative person Has creative achievements • The “could-be” creative person Has creative potential • The creative personality Has creative personality

5. THE CREATIVE PERSON

6. THE CREATIVE PERSON Selection of persons with creative achievements Expert evaluation; Quantity and quality of creative achievements Study of the personality of the creative achievers Interviews; Observations; Ratings; Projective methods; Experiments; Standardized personality measures Assessment of creative personality Control group(s); Correlation with creativity criteria; General population norms;

7. Recognized contemporary creators Evaluation of creative achievements Personality data Recognized creators in human history Measures of eminence Data from auto/biographies Creatively achieving adolescents and adults Measures of creative achievements Personality data Individuals performing high on creative tasks Evaluation of the performance on experimental creative activities Personality data THE CREATIVE PERSON

8. THE CREATIVE PERSON The recognized creator: a solution or a problem? Objective, hence limited? Levels of creativity Replication of findings, non replication of samples

9. THE “COULD-BE” CREATIVE PERSON

10. THE “COULD - BE” CREATIVE PERSON Selection of persons with creative potential Tests of creative ability Study of the personality of the potential creators Interviews; Observations; Ratings; Projective methods; Experiments; Standardized personality measures Assessment of the creative personality Control group(s); Correlation with creativity criteria; General population norms

11. Tests of creative thinking skills e.g. Guilford’s tests, Torrance tests of creative thinking Tests of associative ability e.g. Remote Associates Test (RAT) by Mednick; tests of Wallach and Kogan Other measures of creative production e.g. Test of drawing production TCT - DP by Jellen and Urban; percept-genetic test (CFT) by Smith et al. Cognitive style measures e.g. Barron and Welsh Art Scale THE “COULD - BE” CREATIVE PERSON

12. THE “COULD - BE” CREATIVE PERSON The creative potential: a fact or a fiction? Predictive validity of tests of creative ability Individual and societal differences in creativity How much is enough in measuring creative potential?

13. THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

14. THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY Definition of the creative personality Based on theory or on empirical findings Development of new instruments for the study of the creative personality Personality inventories, scales, questionnaires Assessment of the creative personality Measuring creative personality traits and processes in different populations

15. Theory - based measures e.g. Self-actualization measures Torrance’s Creative motivation scale Empirically derived measures e.g. Adjective Check List: ACL Scales of Creative Personality Scales of creative attitudes, interests, preferences, values THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

16. THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY A creative personality? Yes ! And then what? Validity of the creative personality measures Forms of creativity Many facts, few findings - a challenge to theory of personality and creativity research

17. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK

18. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK The notion of WORK relates to: • individual’s effort and exertion • being engaged in aspecific activity • something that is done, made or accomplished • through the agency of someone or something WORK also: • builds and structures the creative personality • is the inner working of the creative personality

19. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK Creative effort • sustained investment of much time and great effort • exercise of creative talent • difficult and challenging tasks • task involvement • enjoyment, giving up and recreation

20. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK Creative activity • prefer artistic, intellectual, imaginative, innovative activity • interest in the unusual and uncommon • sensitivity to problems • broad interests • openness to experiences, novelty and change

21. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK Agency in creative work • autonomy, independence, non-conformity • drive, ambition and dominance • take initiative and take risks • self-confidence • the ability to be alone and away from others • sense of destiny

22. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK Work and creative development • builds one’s identity on creative work • creative lives as work: phases of learning (B.Bloom), • commitment to work • creative personality as creator’s best work: • complexity of self-organization • flexibility of self-regulation

23. CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORK How creative personality works? Example from personality research TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY * describes personality self-regulation in ambiguous situations * how individuals perceive, interpret and react to ambiguous situations

24. How creative personality works? Examplefrom personality research Tolerance of Ambiguity: Studies 1. Relation to Gender, Age and Education a) 147 men and 157 women aged 18 to 69 b) 392 high school students, 472 university students, 116 non-university youth aged 18 - 25 c) 60 university students and 53 non-university youth aged 18 - 25 (Glutnikova, 2000) 2. Family and School Influences a) 303 high school students, aged 14 to 19, 52 of their teachers and 236 of their parents

25. How creative personality works? Examplefrom personality research Tolerance of Ambiguity: Studies 3. Relation to Personality a) 55 High and 51 Low TA adolescents aged 15 - 18 b) 31 boys and 75 girls aged 14 to 19 c) 84 adults aged 20 to 35 (Lessenska, 2002) 4. Relation to Vocational Preferences and Choice a) 35 men and 87 women aged 18 to 62 (Komneva, 1999)

26. How creative personality works? Examplefrom personality research Tolerance of Ambiguity and Creative Thinking TA positively relates to intelligence, generation of original ideas in verbal tasks, generation of imaginative and abstract titles to pictures in figural tasks

27. How creative personality works? Examplefrom personality research Tolerance of Ambiguity and Motivation for Creativity Tolerance of Ambiguity Need for Achievement Creative Motivation

28. How creative personality works? Examplefrom personality research Tolerance of Ambiguity and Creative Vocation TA positively relates to preferences for occupations with high degree of ambiguity and high degree of freedom

29. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE

30. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE What do we get from creative personality research ? • Knowledge About creative personality • Technology For research and identification • Techniques Psychological instruments and tools

31. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE • To have a creator in the workplace • To develop the creative potential in the workplace • To promote creative personality in the workplace

32. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE Have a creator in the workplace: it is success but it is also a burden

33. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE Develop the creative potential in the workplace: an advantage that carries risks

34. CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACE Promote creative personality in the workplace: a challengewhich outcomes are uncertain

35. The poet’s labor is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean; until he can make the silence answer and the Non-being be. Archibald MacLeish Poetry and Experience CREATIVE PERSONALITY AT WORK