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

Creative Personality At WorkCreative Personality At Work

Katya Stoycheva

Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences

Sofia, Bulgaria

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY AT WORKAT WORK

I. Research approaches to the study of creative personality

II. Findings on creative personality and work

III. Implications for creativity in the workplace

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY RESEARCHRESEARCH

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY RESEARCHRESEARCH

The creative personHas creative achievements

The “could-be” creative person Has creative potential

The creative personalityHas creative personality

THE CREATIVE PERSONTHE CREATIVE PERSON


Selection of persons with creative achievements

Study of the personality of the creative achievers

Assessment of creative personality

Expert evaluation; Quantity and quality of creative achievements

Interviews; Observations; Ratings; Projective methods; Experiments; Standardized personality measures

Control group(s); Correlation with creativity criteria;

General population norms;


Recognized creators in human historyMeasures of eminence

Data from auto/biographies

Creatively achieving adolescents and adultsMeasures of creative achievements

Personality data

Individuals performing high on creative tasksEvaluation of the performance on experimental creative activities

Personality data

Recognized contemporary creators Evaluation of creative achievements

Personality data


The recognized creator: The recognized creator: a solution or a a solution or a problem?problem?

Objective, hence limited?

Levels of creativity

Replication of findings, non replication

of samples

THE “COULD-BE” THE “COULD-BE”

CREATIVE PERSONCREATIVE PERSON

THE “COULD - BE” CREATIVE PERSONTHE “COULD - BE” CREATIVE PERSON

Selection of persons with creative potential

Study of the personality of the potential creators

Assessment of the creative personality

Tests of creative ability

Interviews; Observations; Ratings; Projective methods; Experiments; Standardized personality measures

Control group(s); Correlation with creativity criteria;

General population norms


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

Tests of creative thinking skills e.g. Guilford’s tests, Torrance tests of creative thinking


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?

THE CREATIVETHE CREATIVE

PERSONALITYPERSONALITY

THE CREATIVE PERSONALITYTHE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

Definition of the creative personality

Development of new instruments for the study of the creative personality

Assessment of the creative personality

Based on theory or on empirical findings

Measuring creative personality traits and processes in different populations

Personality inventories, scales, questionnaires


Empirically derived measures

e.g. Adjective Check List: ACL Scales of Creative Personality

Scales of creative attitudes, interests,

preferences, values

Theory - based measures

e.g. Self-actualization measures

Torrance’s Creative motivation scale


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

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY

AND WORKAND WORK

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY AND WORKAND WORK

The notion of WORK relates to: individual’s effort and exertion

something that is done, made or accomplished through the agency of someone or something

builds and structures the creative personality is the inner working of the creative personality

WORK also:

being engaged in a specific activity


Creative effort 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


Creative activityCreative activity

• prefer artistic, intellectual, imaginative, innovative activity

• interest in the unusual and uncommon

• sensitivity to problems

• broad interests

• openness to experiences, novelty and change


Agency in creative 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


Work and creative developmentWork 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


How creative personality works?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

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)

How creative personality works?How creative personality works?ExampleExample from personality researchfrom personality research

2. Family and School Influences

a) 303 high school students, aged 14 to 19, 52 of their teachers and 236 of their parents

Tolerance of Ambiguity: Studies


4. Relation to Vocational Preferences and Choice

a) 35 men and 87 women aged 18 to 62 (Komneva, 1999)

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)

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


Tolerance of Ambiguity and Motivation for Creativity


Tolerance of Ambiguity

Creative Motivation

Need for Achievement

Tolerance of Ambiguity and Creative Vocation

TA positively relates to preferences for

occupations with high degree of

ambiguity and high degree of freedom


CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY

IN THE WORKPLACEIN THE WORKPLACE

CREATIVE PERSONALITY CREATIVE PERSONALITY IN THE WORKPLACEIN THE WORKPLACE

KnowledgeKnowledge About creative personality

TechnologyTechnologyFor research and identification

TechniquesTechniques Psychological instruments and tools

What do we get from creative personality research ?


To have a creator in the workplace

To develop the creative potential in the workplace

To promote creative personality in the workplace


Have a creator in the workplace:

it is success but it is also a

burden


Develop the creative potential

in the workplace: an advantage

that carries risks


Promote creative personality in

the workplace: a challenge which

outcomes are uncertain

CREATIVE PERSONALITY AT WORKCREATIVE PERSONALITY AT WORK

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 MacLeishPoetry and Experience

Documents

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