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Empirical studies of personality traits in creative writers have demonstrated mixed findings, perhaps due to issues of sampling, measurement, and the reporting of statistical information. The goal of this study is to quantify the personality structure of aspiring creative writers according to a modern hierarchal model of trait personality. A sample...
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... first goal was to determine whether the prescreen questions were successful in creating two groups, one composed of individuals engaged with creative writing and the other not. Independent samples t-tests were conducted to examine group differences for self-reported writing behavior (Table 1). Writers reported greater preference and liking for writing fiction and poetry, and a higher frequency of writing fiction and poetry than nonwriters. ...Similar publications
Personality traits have shown variable relationships to measures of religious motivation. For example, Costa and McCrae (1985) and McCrae and Costa (1999) suggested that individuals who are high in agreeableness and conscientious gravitate toward religion once they ‘meet’ with religion as a cultural identity Openness to experience involves varied e...
Previous work has found strong links between the choice of social media images and users' emotions, demographics and personality traits. In this study, we examine which attributes of profile and posted images are associated with depression and anxiety of Twitter users. We used a sample of 28,749 Facebook users to build a language prediction model o...
Research has consistently demonstrated that political liberalism is predicted by the personality trait Openness to Experience and conservatism by trait Conscientiousness. Less well studied, however, is how trait personality influences political orientation. The present study investigated whether differences in media preference might mediate the lin...
Recent studies have shown that preference judgments can vary considerably from one person to another and when these data are averaged the results can be misleading. In the current study, we examine individual differences in aesthetic preference for randomized visual patterns. In Experiment 1, we start with a structured checkerboard and progressivel...
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... J. et al (2011) in their study revealed that openness to experience; extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness have a positive significant relation with creativity and neurosis a negative one. Marta M. Maslej et al (2014) found that Individuals with higher scores on Agreeableness, stability and assertiveness were less likely to be aspiring writers. The findings revealed that aspiring creative writers differ from non-writers so far as trait personality is concerned, with differences emerging on all levels of the personality hierarchy. ...
The study was undertaken to study the relationship between the factors of personality and Emotional Intelligence of Creative writers of Jammu & Kashmir. The sample of the study comprised of 80 creative writers (Sahitya Akademi Award nominees and Selectees). Big Five Personality inventory by McCrae and Costa (1992) (to measure personality) and Emotional Intelligence Scale (2011) by Hyde, Pathe and Dhar were the tools used for the collection of Data. Correlation was computed by employing Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation on Personality and Emotional Intelligence of Creative writers (N=80) at dimension level. The study revealed that significant Negative relationship existed between the factors of Personality: Extraversion and factors C (Self-motivation) and H (Value Orientation); (O)Openness to Experience and factor E (Managing relations) of Emotional Intelligence. However no significant relationship was found between the rest of the factors. riginality and relevance as two necessary ingredients of Creativity aid people in their unique and rare expressions. Individuals, beset with the skill of creativity are capable of finding new solutions, seeing things in a different perspective and generating and evaluating new ideas. Creativity assists in gratifying the need to express oneself in a unique way. The process of creativity involves the forming of associative elements into new combinations that are meaningful, appropriate, or meet some needs. Since creativity is expressed in many different forms, it can take the form of a discovery, creation or improvement. Although Creativity is a universal quality that exists in all people, it goes on differing from individual to individual with respect to its level or amount. A number of studies recognize that the potential of creativity can be realized, developed, enhanced and cultivated. The studies concerning to the identification of personality characteristics of highly creative and eminent people provided a better initiation to the fertile research on creativity. Numerous intellectual characteristics have been located to comprise attributes that foster creativity.
... Other behavioral studies have attributed creativity to individuals distinguished by a wide array of achievements that are exemplary of high intelligence, fascination with solving problems and contradictions, autonomy and nonconformity, intuition and the vigor to think outside of the box (Cropley, Cropley, Chiera, & Kaufman, 2013;Drevdahl & Cattell, 1958;Drus, Kozbelt, & Hughes, 2014;Maslej, Rain, Fong, Oatley, & Mar, 2014;Runco, 1999;Vincent, Decker, & Mumford, 2002). These characteristics were usually assessed by observing an individual's behavior during activities that require creativity, with the use of self-report questionnaires (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005;Davis 1975;Richards, 1990;Richards & Kinney, 1990), on the basis of a variety of psychometrical methods, such as IQ tests (Ludwig 1992b;Batey, Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham, 2010;Kim, 2005) and other academic achievements (Ai, 1999;Furnham, Zhang, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2005;Welter, Jaarsveld, van Leeuwen, & Lachmann, 2016). ...
A strong relationship between creativity and major depression has been attested to in many past studies. These suggest a correlation between high creative propensity and the prevalence of depression as well as attribute the implementation of creative tasks in therapy with the facilitation and reduction of depressive symptoms. This article supports the hypothesis of a bidirectional relationship between creativity and depression. Based on a theoretical framework proposed by Agamben in his critique of Freud, this article develops this hypothesis by associating depression with the non-adaptive application of a person’s innate creativity. More specifically, it provides a model that associates the onset of depression with a unique form of non-adaptive hyper-activation of creative capacity. By distinguishing a unique mode of intransitive (object-less) creative hyper-activation in depression, it provides a wider explanatory scope for the vast array of studies attesting to a relationship between creativity and depression, and provides several prospects for the clinical facilitation of depression utilizing creative tasks.
... For instance, the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project (2011), all recognize that college students' personality traits, such as curiosity and openness, are crucial in determining the quality of their writing. Also, Maslej, Rain, Fong, Oatley, and Mar (2014) identified an association between personality and writing, concluding that "creative writers scored higher on trait openness" (p. 192). ...
This study applied the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to explore the predictive relations among personality facets, writing strategy use, and writing performance of college students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). In total, 201 participants composed an argument-based essay, before being surveyed using two self-report instruments: the Personality Facet Scale (PFS), which measured 10 facets within the framework of the Five-Factor Model (FFM), and the Writing Strategy Scale (WSS) that assessed six types of strategy. The established structural model indicated the following: (a) Five types of strategy and six facets predicted writing performance, (b) nine facets predicted the use of at least one type of strategy, either positively or negatively, and (c) the five types of strategy mediated the relations between the nine facets and writing performance. As suggested, adding and treating strategy use as a mediator could help elaborate and elucidate the facet–performance relations in the EFL writing context.
... However, these differences may also, or instead, have reflected stronger needs or desires on the part of the CW students to regulate their emotions, explore their thoughts and feelings, engage in self-therapy, or avoid being depressed. Evidence suggesting that writers may be especially prone to depression and other forms of mental illness (e.g., Ludwig, 1995;Maslej, Rain, Fong, Oatley, & Mar, 2014) is compatible with this second interpretation. Both processes, of course, may have been at work; students with certain emotional needs may tend to gravitate toward artistic activities which lend themselves to the satisfaction of those needs. ...
This exploratory study was designed to expand the field’s understanding of talented adolescent visual artists and creative writers and their conscious motivations for engaging in these creative activities. Accordingly, 233 talented high school visual arts (n = 151) and creative writing (n = 82) students were asked to rate the degree to which they believed their creative activities were motivated by each of a wide range of possible motivations. The students in both fields reported being very strongly motivated by the opportunities their activities provided them to use their imaginations, feel free, sense that they were being their “true” selves, regulate their emotions, capture moments in time, deepen their self-understanding, express themselves, improve their skills, and enhance their self-esteem. Some of these motivations correspond closely to those highlighted by theories of intrinsic motivation, competence motivation, and self-actualization, several are similar to those which have been reported by professional artists and writers, and some suggest that the students may have derived important psychological benefits from their creative activities. Theoretically plausible differences between the motivational profiles of the visual and creative writing students were identified and discussed.
... Higher levels of Openness have been found in writers working across diverse contexts, with comedy writers scoring higher in Openness than comedy performers, for example (Greengross & Miller, 2009). Another study found that undergraduate students who enjoyed creative writing were higher in Openness than were students who did not (Maslej et al., 2014). Openness prompts people to seek a diverse range of life experiences, including various forms of art, which may usefully inform the process of creating a character. ...
... The participants provided some demographical information (i.e., their age and gender), then read a debriefing sheet and were given course credit as remuneration. (Personality data from this sample were previously published by Maslej et al., 2014). ...
Characters are considered central to works of fiction and essential to our enjoyment of them. We conducted an exploratory study to examine whether the ability to sketch engaging fictional characters is influenced by a writer’s attributes. Samples of 93 creative writers and 114 nonwriters generated character descriptions based on a portrait photograph. We measured participants’ experiences with reading and writing in various genres, their trait personality, their self-reported perspective-taking tendencies, and cognitive accessibility of social information. Next, 144 raters read these sketches and assessed the characters for interest, likability, and complexity. Characters produced by creative writers were rated as more interesting and complex, though not more likable, than were those produced by nonwriters. Participants who wrote more fiction and poetry and read more poetry, and those who scored high on Openness to Experience, sketched characters that were more interesting and complex. Moreover, Openness mediated the relationships between fiction-writing and poetry-reading and how Interesting characters were. Participants with higher levels of perspective-taking produced characters that were more complex, however, those for whom social information was cognitively more accessible tended to create characters who were less likable. These findings suggest that there is a measurable influence of individual differences on the ability to develop compelling fictional characters during creative writing.
The study was undertaken to study the Value Orientation of Creative Writers (SahityaAkademi Awardees & Non-awardees) of Jammu & Kashmir. The sample of the study comprised of 40 Creative writers as Awardees and 40 Creative Writers as Non-awardees. .Value Orientation Scale (1960) by Allport et al Indian adaption N.Y Reddy (1980) was used for the collection of Data and ‘t’ test was employed for the analysis of data. The investigator found a significant difference between the two groups on factors Aesthetic Value and Economic Value. However, no significant difference was found on factors Theoretical, Social, Politicaland Religious of Value orientation between the two groups of Creative Writers.
The study was undertaken to study the Emotional Intelligence of Creative writers (SahityaAkademy Awardees & Non-awardees) of Jammu & Kashmir. The sample of the study comprised of 40 Creative Writers as Awardees and 40 Creative Writers as Non-Awardees. Hyde et al Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) (2011) was used for the collection of Data andt’ test was employed for the analysis of data. The investigator found a significant difference between the two groups on factor Self -development of EI (Emotional Intelligence). However, no significant difference was found on factors A(Self-awareness), b(Empathy), C(Self-motivation), D(Emotional stability), E(Managing relations), F(Integrity), H(Value orientation), I(Commitment), and J(Altruistic behavior) of Emotional Intelligence.
This chapter reviews some aspects of creativity that are common to many artistic domains and particularly aspects that are distinctive about photography (e.g., the violence/entrapment metaphor, the role of timing and light, the issue of whether photography is merely a reproduction of reality with minimal creativity). Although photographers typically do not concern themselves with definitions of creativity, many have offered suggestions on how to judge photographic creativity which aids the measurement process. In this chapter we cover creativity in photography based on three different perspectives: (1) creative photographs, (2) expertise in creative photography, and (3) creative personality as studied through photographic autoportraits and photo essays. Consistent with the expansion of the literature, the rapid growth of digital technology suggests that this domain of creativity is entering its golden age.
