The 7 Personality Traits of Creative People

Discover the seven main and most prominent personality traits of creative people.

Some people seem to have the gift of creativity, while others prefer to do more mechanical work. Why does this happen? What are the individual differences between people who are creative and those who are not?

What is creativity?

Creativity is usually understood as the ability to create new ideas whose development serves a specific purpose.. Popularly, creativity is perceived as a gift immanent to a select few, a talent that everyone would like to possess but that only a few actually have, as a personality attribute of its own.

What are creative people like?

For this reason, numerous studies have tried to explain how people can develop these creative capacities, and have therefore detected certain keys and techniques to exploit the creative potential of each subject.

However, until recently, researchers had not paid much attention to the personality traits of people with creative abilities. personality traits of people with creative abilities (if there was a more (if there was a more or less defined pattern). In order to shed light on this question, Oyvind Lund Martinsen, a professor at the Norwegian Business School (BI), conducted research to sketch the personality profile of creative people in 2011.

Martinsen analyzed the personality traits of a total of 491 subjectsincluding 70 artists, 48 marketing school students, as well as professors and students from various adjacent universities.

The results of the study identified seven distinctive traits in people with remarkable creative abilities. Among all the characteristics reported, such as higher performance in the academic or work facet, it was a surprise to encounter several traits that suggest shortcomings in some aspects of the person, such as certain shortcomings in theThe seven characteristics of the creative personality, such as certain deficiencies in the aspect of interpersonal relationships.

The seven characteristics of the creative personality identified by the research:

1. Associative orientation

Creative people have a great imagination. They tend to create a good number of ideas, coupled with a high degree of commitment to their development. They wander between reality and fiction..

2. Originality

Their nature leads them to reject social clichés, conventions and norms.conventions and norms. They are rebellious and feel the need to act in a personal way according to their own criteria.

3. Commitment

They enjoy carrying out their plans and challenges, overcoming complicated situations to achieve their goals.overcoming difficult situations until they achieve their goals. They enjoy what they do in an extraordinary way: when they work, they remain in a state of flow.

4. Ambition

They like to influence others, to be the center of attention and to obtain recognition and social prestige. social prestige. This motivates them to Excel and to want to prove their worth.

5. Holism

Creative individuals are able to understand the different facets of situations or problems, being able to find creative and ingenious solutions.They are able to find creative and ingenious solutions. They do not stick to closed structures of thought, but manage to combine different techniques, skills and knowledge successfully, being able to create tools or artistic pieces of great value.

6. Emotional instability

They usually experience changing emotions and fluctuations in their moods. These symptoms are usually related to self-confidence problems.

7. Poor sociability

They tend to be highly critical and tend to be reluctant to give acceptance to others.

As described by the Norwegian Business School, it seems that all the traits associated with creative thinking, such as associative orientation (which is related to ingenuity), and flexibility (associated with the ability to project), are the most important determinants of the development of the creative personality.

As for the poor levels of sociability found in the study, Martinsen points out that employers should try to find a balance in order to converge in companies the ability to cooperate with ingenuity and creativity. "Creative workers may be lacking in the pragmatism of their actions," he notes.