Creativity and personality traits in college students

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Hossein Zare ¹ (PhD Payame Noor University Tehran–Iran)
Mojgan Agah Heris ² (Payame Noor University)
Maryam Bayat ³ (Payame Noor University)

Received: 2015-06-03 Accepted : 2015-06-03 Published : 2010-12-22

Keywords: Creativity, college student, Personality traits, physical education, Engineering, art and architecture,

Abstract :

the goal of this research was to explain creativity based on personality traits. One-hundred and twenty-one female and 167 male college students, with a mean age of 24, were chosen by random multistage sampling method from the schools of art and architecture (N=98), physical education (N=93) and engineering (N=98). The participants completed the Torrance Creativity Inventory (1966) and the Five Factor Personality Inventory (Costa & Mc Crae, 1992). Results showed that in all three groups creativity was correlated with neuroticism (negatively) and with openness, extraversion and conscientiousness (positively). Positive correlation between creativity and agreeableness was significant only in the physical education group. Comparison of correlations in all three groups using Fisher’s transformation was only significant between creativity and agreeableness in the two groups of physical education and art. Stepwise regression indicated that openness, extraversion and conscientiousness explained 34% of variance in creativity scores in the art group, extraversion and conscientiousness predicted 28% of variance in the engineering group, and agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness accounted for 38% of variance in creativity scores for the physical education group. It appears that personality traits can predict different levels of creativity in students