Characteristics of Personality in People with Different Talents

Abstract

Ecologia Balkanica, 2018, 10(2), 199-204: The five basic characteristics of personality were analyzed in relation to the expression of different talents in 945 persons aged 16-90, 70.9% of whom were women and 29.1% – men. The measures used include Goldberg's "Markers of the Big Five Factors" questionnaire, adapted to Bulgarian culture, as well as self-reported data about musical talent and talent in three other domains with proven manifestations and achievements: art, writing or sports. The analysis of the
relationships between the Big-Five personality factors and talents found that people with musical talent had higher levels of Agreeableness and Intellect/Imagination. Participants with other talents had higher values of Extraversion and Intellect/Imagination.

Full text

ECOLOGIA BALKANICA
2018, Vol. 10, Issue 2 December 2018 pp. 199-204
Characteristics of Personality in People with Different Talents
Evgeniya N. Ivanova1*, Anna Alexandrova-Karamanova2, Stanislav Ivanov1,
Stela Grozeva1, Michaela Georgieva1, Tanya Dimitrova1, Teodora Hayverova1
University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”, 24 Tzar Asen Str., 4000 Plovdiv, BULGARIA
1 - Biological Faculty, Department of Developmental Biology, Institute for population and human
studies Sofia 1113, Acad. Georgi Bonchev St., Bl. 6, Fl. 5/6, BULGARIA
2 – Department of Psychology
*Corresponding author: e.ivanova@gmail.com
Abstract. The five basic characteristics of personality were analyzed in relation to the expression of
different talents in 945 persons aged 16-90, 70.9% of whom were women and 29.1% – men. The
measures used include Goldberg's "Markers of the Big Five Factors" questionnaire, adapted to
Bulgarian culture, as well as self-reported data about musical talent and talent in three other
domains with proven manifestations and achievements: art, writing or sports. The analysis of the
relationships between the Big-Five personality factors and talents found that people with musical
talent had higher levels of Agreeableness and Intellect/Imagination. Participants with other talents
had higher values of Extraversion and Intellect/Imagination.
Key words: big-five personality factors, musical talent, other talents.
Introduction
With his behavior, worldview, and
attitude to the surrounding world, humans
could reasonably be seen as an “ecological
factor”. They influence the environment
through their decisions, planning and concrete
actions. People's responsibility, their goodwill
and openness to the world and nature could be
characterized by studying their personality
traits, as well as by looking at the complex
relationships between personality traits and
other individual features that have a significant
inheritance component. Such studies are at the
borderline of psychology and genetics, and
mentioned interdependencies are a part of the
subjects of behavioral genetics.
The complex human behavior,
including temperament and personality
characteristics, is the subject of different
investigations aimed to describe both their
multifaceted phenotypic expression and
their relationship with well-studied
mechanisms of the genetic constitution. It is
widely recognized that human behavior
depends on an interaction between a
multitude of genetic and environmental
factors. The basic characteristics of the
personality, the approaches to their
characterization and their frequency of
expression in different human populations
have been studied by many authors
(MCCRAE & JOHN, 1992; GOLDBERG, 1990;
1992; 2001; COSTA & MCCRAE, 1992a, b, 2008;
GOLDBERG et al., 2006; ALEXANDROVA-
KARAMANOVA, 2016). At the same time,
complex psychogenetic studies as a whole
© Ecologia Balkanica
http://eb.bio.uni-plovdiv.bg
Union of Scientists in Bulgaria – Plovdiv
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Characteristics of Personality in People with Different Talents
are presented in works of BORINSKAYA &
ROGAEV (2000), HILL et al. (2002), BAKER
(2004), LUCHININ (2005).
The complex impact of genetic factors
and environmental factors on the
manifestation of musical talent and other
talents has excited scientists for a long time
(SHOCKLEY, 1957; PRICE, 1963; LYKKEN, 1982;
1998; LYKKEN et al., 1992; WALLER et al., 1993;
SIMONTON, 1986; 1987; 1988; 1997; 1999;
2001; 2005; DRAYNA et al., 2001). A pioneer
in the field was Francis GALTON, who in
1869 described studies dedicated to the
genetics of the talent, and the relationships
between heredity and talents. Although such
studies would enrich scientific information on
the multifactorial bases of complex
behavioral-genetic characteristics such as
personality, temperament or talents, for
example, in Bulgaria they are almost absent
(IVANOVA et al., 2017a, b). This motivated the
present study – to explore by appropriate
statistical approaches possible dependencies
between the basic characteristics of
personality and the manifestation of different
talents in the field of music, art, writing or
sports.
Materials and Methods
A total of 945 individuals (70.9% female
and 29.1% male) with average age of 32.3
years were included in this study. The sample
was collected at random with voluntary
participation in the study and this determines
the difference in male and female
representation. Among the studied
population, 68.1% were young people – up to
35 years of age. The Big-five basic
characteristics of personality (Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional
stability and Intellect/Imagination) were
analyzed by Goldberg's "Markers of the Big
Five Factors" questionnaire (GOLDBERG, 1990,
1992), adapted to Bulgarian culture
(ALEKSANDROVA-KARAMANOVA, 2016). For
each one of the five traits, participants were
categorized into one of five groups according
to their score: (1) low expression of the trait;
(2) rather low expression of the trait; (3) in the
middle; (4) rather high expression of the trait;
(5) high expression of the trait.
Self-reported questionnaire data about
manifested talents were also collected. On the
basis of the data presented in the completed
questionnaires, the participants were
classified into two groups – with musical
talent and with other talents. The second
group was formed mainly by participants
showing talents other than musical or having
the performance of two or three different
talents, such as dancing and sports, acting
and dancing, writing and painting, etc. Only
proven manifestations and achievements in
the field of music, art, writing, or sports
certified by diplomas, awards and other
documents requested by the participants
were included in the statistical analysis which
was done by means of the SPSS software
package (version 2). To identify possible
statistically significant associations between
the basic features of the personality and the
musical talent or other talents, descriptive
statistic and independent t-test was
performed.
Results and Discussion
It is known that humans create a rich
variety of music, that most of them enjoy
music in some form. The connection between
human, nature and art in all its dimensions is
significant and tangible. In fact, music and the
other arts are interwoven in the complicated
relationships between the persons and nature
as an environment, that the ability to perceive
and create art is present in all human societies
known to date.
The results of our study showed that
24.6% of the participants had a musical
talent, manifested as composing, singing, or
playing a musical instrument, and 35.3% of
the participants had other talents, different
than musicals, manifested independently or
in combinations including fine arts,
literature and poetry, dancing, and sports.
The mean values of the five personality traits
showed that Agreeableness was most
pronounced, followed by Conscientiousness
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Ivanova et al.
and Intellect/Imagination. The lowest values
had Emotional stability (i.e. high
Neuroticism was observed). Regarding
groups of persons with high and somewhat
high expression of the respective personality
traits, 45.2% were agreeable (or somewhat
agreeable); 64.1% were Conscientious (or
somewhat Conscientious); 44.3% had high or
somewhat high Intellect/Imagination; 21.4%
were (somewhat) extraverted and 33.0%
were (somewhat) emotionally stable (Table
1).
Table 1. Legal documents in the contemporary Bulgarian and European legislation,
determining the conservation status of the registered species in the current study.
Personality
factors >
Level of
expression of
the trait V
Extraversion
N/%
Consciousness
N/%
Agreeableness
N/%
Emotional
Stability
N/%
Intellect/
Imagination
N/%
Low
expression 360/39.9 47/5.1 122/13.3 226/24.8 118/13.0
Rather low
expression 178/19.5 97/10.6 173/18.8 208/22.9 169/18.6
In the middle 181/19.8 184/20.1 208/22.7 176/19.3 219/24.1
Rather high
expression 102/11.1 222/24.3 192/20.9 120/13.2 180/19.8
High
expression 94/10.3 364/39.8 223/24.3 180/19.8 223/24.5
Total 915/100 914/100 918/100 910/100 909/100
The analysis of the relationships
between the basic characteristics of
personality and talents established that
people with musical talent had higher levels
of Agreeableness and Intellect/Imagination.
The found Significances were 0.035 and
0.001, respectively (Table 2.) The high
Agreeableness of participants appearing in
the field of music may reflect their desire to
connect with people through music, and to
give joy, harmony, etc. to others by creating
music. High Intellect/Imagination probably
reflects the high creativity and creative
potential of the persons with musical talent
and their ability to master / improve their
musical skills. Participants with other talents
had higher values of Extraversion and
Intellect/Imagination. The found
Significances were 0.016 and 0.000,
respectively (Table 2.). The association with
Intellect/Imagination is analogous to that of
musical talent. The relationship with
Extraversion is likely to indicate the desire
for public appearances / an audience, which
is characteristic of performers, authors,
athletes.
Studies with such a complex design are
rare, and this is the reason our results could
not be compared to other literature
information. Data obtained in our study
show higher levels of expression of the basic
personality characteristics of
Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and
Intellect/Imagination and lower levels of
Extraversion and Emotional stability
expression. At the same time, a relatively
high percentage of the studied individuals
(24.6% and 35.3) show their talents in the
field of music and other arts, which is an
evidence of their creative potential.
Conclusions
Higher levels of expression of
Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and
Intellect / Imagination and lower levels of
Extraversion and Emotional stability have been
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Characteristics of Personality in People with Different Talents
obtained in this study. People with musical
talent had higher levels of Agreeableness and
Intellect / Imagination. Participants with other
talents had higher values of Extraversion and
Intellect / Imagination. The relationships
between the individual creative and personal
basic characteristics could be used to solve
problems related to education or to reveal
opportunities for personal self-improvement
and wellbeing.
Table 2. Significant associations between the musical talent and other talents and the
Big-five personality traits in the whole sample: results from the t-test.
Musical talent
Personality Factor N Mean t Sig.
Extraversion presence 194 33.76 1.251 .211
absence 608 32.94
Agreeableness presence 196 41.29 2.113 .035
absence 608 40.19
Consciousness presence 197 37.57 -1.123 .262
absence 606 38.22
Emotional stability presence 197 30.12 1.580 .115
absence 599 28.93
Intellect/
Imagination
presence 194 39.04 3.444 .001
absence 604 37.26
Other talents
Personality Factor N Mean t Sig.
Extraversion presence 260 34.11 2.411 .016
absence 480 32.64
Consciousness presence 261 40.89 1.589 .112
absence 480 40.10
Agreeableness presence 257 37.52 -1.307 .192
absence 481 38.23
Emotional stability presence 258 29.93 1.670 .095
absence 476 28,74
Intellect/
Imagination
presence 257 39.67 6.950 .000
absence 480 36.39
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the University
of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” through the
contract SP17 BF007.
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Received: 31.10.2018
Accepted: 21.12.2018
© Ecologia Balkanica
http://eb.bio.uni-plovdiv.bg
Union of Scientists in Bulgaria – Plovdiv
University of Plovdiv Publishing House