Creativity: Theories, Prediction, and Etiology - Lars …

1 creativity : theories , prediction , and Etiology Diploma Thesis for the Final Examination in the Department of Psychology of the Faculty for Psychology and Sports Sciences at the University of Bielefeld Presented by Lars Penke in 2003 First Assessor and Supervisor: PD Dr. F. M. Spinath Second Assessor Prof. Dr. A. Angleitner Department of Individual Differences and Personality Research Acknowledgements I Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr.

2 Frank M. Spinath and Prof. Dr. Alois Angleitner for their support during this study, good cooperation during the last two years and, together with Prof. Dr. Rainer Riemann and Prof. Dr. Peter Borkenau, for giving me access to the extraordinary BiLSAT and GOSAT twin data sets. This study owes much more than a simple thank you can express to Anna-Karen St rmer and my fianc Simone Sprenger for their unbelievable stamina during the scoring of the T-88 data. The latter one also deserves all my gratitude for giving the only meaning to it all.

3 Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Hermann and Sigrid Penke, for supporting me along the whole way that led me to where I am now. I want to dedicate this thesis to the memorial of Prof. Dr. Linda Mealey (1955-2002), who substantially encouraged my path during my undergraduate years by taking me and my early ideas serious. Parts of this thesis were already presented as a poster at the 7. Fachgruppentagung f r Differentielle Psychologie, Pers nlichkeitspsychologie und Psychologische Diagnostik (DPPD), Halle, Germany, 09.

4 2003. Table of contents II TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .. 1 Background .. 1 Cognitive influences on creativity .. 2 creativity and personality .. 6 Models and theories of a disposition towards 12 The Etiology of 17 Aims and hypotheses of the present 21 2. PILOT STUDY: THE T-88 AS A MEASURE OF 23 23 23 Materials .. 24 27 Results .. 28 Reliability 28 Correlational 29 Discussion.

5 31 3. MAIN STUDY: creativity IN BiLSAT AND GOSAT .. 33 33 33 Total sample .. 33 Core sample .. 34 Materials and 34 Measurement point 1: II. BiLSAT 34 Measurement point 2: 35 Measurement point 3: III. BiLSAT 37 Zygosity determination .. 38 Results .. 38 Reliability 38 Aggregation of 42 Age and sex 46 Table of contents III Phenotypic relations of creativity with intelligence and personality.

6 47 Relations of creativity with intelligence .. 47 Relations of creativity with personality .. 50 Regression analyses .. 52 The structure of creativity after controlling for intelligence and personality .. 57 Genetic and environmental influences on creativity and its correlations with personality and 60 Univariate behavioral genetic analyses .. 60 Bivariate behavioral genetic 68 Discussion.

7 74 4. GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .. 81 5. REFERENCES .. 85 6. 100 The 100 Rater instructions for the 103 Response baselines for the 105 7. EIDESSTATTLICHE ERL RUNG (AFFIDAVIT).. 107 Introduction 1 1. Introduction Background creativity is a phenomenon that has always fascinated lay people as well as scientists. It is for example valued as a property of pieces of art or literature, musical compositions, scientific works, narrations, witty comments, decorations, and technical or social inventions.

8 In all these various facets, creativity is a prime source of cultural progress and responsible for a multitude of small contributions to our everyday enjoyment and well-being. Because of these effects, it is also appreciated as an attribute of employees, artists, entertainers, scientists, friends and mates. Its social and cultural importance led just about every major personality psychologist of the 20th century be it Freud, Jung, Adler, Skinner, Maslow, Murray, Rogers, Kelly, Guilford, Cattell, or Eysenck to write about creativity (Woodman, 1981).

9 Mayer (1999) reviewed seven definitions given by authors contributing to the 1999 Handbook of creativity (Sternberg, 1999), and summarized them as [..] creativity involves the creation of an original and useful product. (italics in original). This definition can account as representative for those traditionally used in psychology (see also Stein, 1953; MacKinnon, 1962). Under different perspectives, creativity can be studied as a property of a person, process, product or even situation.

10 In the light of the important, yet often ignored, hedonistic function of creativity , I want to emphasize the necessity of a subjective aspect in this definition. Its second part, useful , should explicitly include the potential of a creative product to satisfy subjective aesthetic needs. Without doubt, there are areas of creative endeavor where more objective criteria can and should be used. In evaluating the creativity of a scientific theory, for example, criteria like parsimony or practical and explanatory value should be given precedence.