Characteristics of the Creative Person

Abstract

Faculty members in colleges and universities offer creativity courses in a variety of fields of study with the goal of infusing greater creativity into their respective professions. Each teacher strives toward this goal with instructional actions defined by a point of view or personal perspective. To what extent is the perspective of those teaching creativity classes influenced by the literature describing what is needed to be creative? The purpose of this study was twofold: First, it was an attempt to identify the relevant characteristics of a creative person and, second, to use this list of characteristics as a point of reference for a comparison between the perceptions of college faculty (N = 101) and the number of citations related to each characteristic identified. The list of potential characteristics was generated from a content analysis of 67 college course syllabi and used to develop the instrument to collect the reactions of a group of professors identified as teachers of creativity in an American college or university. The list of characteristics served as search descriptors to conduct several database searches yielding a citation count for each characteristic. Results indicate an overall Spearman rho correlation of .520, which will account for about 25% of the variance. Rank order of important characteristics of creative persons are imagination, openness to experience, inquisitiveness or curiosity, intuition, idea finding, tolerance for ambiguitym independence, innovation, insight, and others. Implications for the conditions of differences are discussed in terms of an indicative history, current academic themes, and a potential research agenda.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Bailey, R. L. (1979). Disciplined creativity for engineers. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Science.

Bull, K. S., Montgomery, D., Baloche, L., Pinson, D., Brown, R., & Salyer, B. K. (1991a). Bibliography on creativity training methods. Unpublished manuscript, Oklahoma State University.

Bull, K. S. , Montgomery, D. , Baloche, L. , Pinson, D. , Brown, R. , & Salyer, B. K. (1991b, July). Empirical dimensions of creativity: Perceptions of faculty teaching college level creativity courses. Paper presented at the Second National Conference on Creativity in American Colleges and Universities, Midland, MI.

Guilford, J. P. (1975). Creativity: A quarter century of progress. In I. A. Taylor & J. W. Getzels (Eds.), Perspectives in creativity (pp. 37-59). Chicago: Aldine.

Isaksen, S. G. (Ed.). (1987). Frontiers of creative research: Beyond the basics. Buffalo, NY: Bearly Limited.

Isaksen, S. G. , & Treffinger, D. J. (1985). Creative problem solving: The basic course. Buffalo, NY: Bearly Limited.

Koestler, A. (1964). The act of creation. New York: Dell.

MacKinnon, D. W. (1960). The highly effective individual. Teachers College Record, 61, 367-378.

10.

MacKinnon, D. W. (1962). The nature and nurture of creative talent. American Psychologist, 20, 273-281.

11.

MacKinnon, D. W. (1975). IPAR's contribution to the study of creativity. In I. A. Taylor & J. W. Getzels (Eds.), Perspectives in creativity (pp. 60-89). Chicago: Aldine.

12.

McDonough, P. , & McDonough, B. (1987). A survey of American colleges and universities on the conducting of formal courses in creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 21, 271-282.

13.

Renzulli, J. (1978). What makes giftedness? Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 180-251.

14.

Taylor, I. A. , & Getzels, J. W. (Eds.). (1975). Perspectives in creativity. Chicago: Aldine.

15.

Thorne, A. , & Gough, H. (1991). Portraits of type. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

16.

Torrance, E. P. (1979). Search for satori and creativity. Buffalo, NY: Bearly Limited.

17.

Wehner, L. , Csikszentmihalyi, M. , & Magyari-Beck, I. (1991). Current approaches used in studying creativity: An exploratory investigation. Creativity Research Journal, 4, 261-271.