JournalJournal of of Personality Personality 84:2, ••:••, April •• 2015 2016 VC©2014 2014 Wiley Wiley Periodicals, Periodicals, Inc. Inc. Openness to Experience and Intellect DOI:DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12156 10.1111/jopy.12156 Differentially Predict Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences Scott Barry Kaufman,1 Lena C. Quilty,2 Rachael G. Grazioplene,3 Jacob B. Hirsh,4 Jeremy R. Gray,5 Jordan B. Peterson,4 and Colin G. DeYoung3 1The Imagination Institute, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania 2Centre for Addiction and Mental Health 3University of Minnesota 4University of Toronto 5Michigan State University Abstract The Big Five personality dimension Openness/Intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. Little is known, however, regarding the discriminant validity of its two aspects—Openness to Experience (reflecting cognitive engagement with perception, fantasy, aesthetics, and emotions) and Intellect (reflecting cognitive engage- ment with abstract and semantic information, primarily through reasoning)—in relation to creativity. In four demographically diverse samples totaling 1,035 participants, we investigated the independent predictive validity of Openness and Intellect by assessing the relations among cognitive ability, divergent thinking, personality, and creative achievement across the arts and sciences. We confirmed the hypothesis that whereas Openness predicts creative achievement in the arts, Intellect predicts creative achievement in the sciences. Inclusion of performance measures of general cognitive ability and divergent thinking indicated that the relation of Intellect to scientific creativity may be due at least in part to these abilities. Lastly, we found that Extraversion additionally predicted creative achievement in the arts, independently of Openness. Results are discussed in the context of dual-process theory. The Five-Factor Model, or Big Five, provides a useful tax- Although Openness/Intellect can be generally characterized onomy of personality traits, and these traits predict many as a dimension of personality reflecting the tendency toward important life outcomes, including achievement in school and cognitive exploration, it can also be meaningfully separated work, physical and mental health, and social behavior (Ozer & into distinct (but correlated) subtraits of Openness to Experi- Benet-Martinez, 2006). The Big Five factor labeled Openness/ ence and Intellect (DeYoung, 2014; DeYoung, Quilty, & Intellect predicts outcomes in all of these categories Peterson, 2007). This conclusion helps reconcile an old debate (DeYoung, 2014) and is also the only factor consistently and about how to characterize this factor of personality. Although broadly related to creativity, predicting creative achievement it was suggested over 20 years ago that Openness and Intellect and divergent thinking, as well as creative hobbies, personal characterize distinct but equally central aspects of the factor goals, and thinking styles (Batey & Furnham, 2006; Carson, (Johnson, 1994; Saucier, 1992), the empirical demonstration Peterson, & Higgins, 2003; Feist, 1998; Feist & Barron, 2003; that these are the two major subfactors was relatively recent King, Walker, & Broyles, 1996; McCrae, 1987; Silvia, (DeYounget al., 2007; Woo et al., 2014). Intellect reflects cog- Nusbaum, Berg, Martin, & O’Connor, 2009; Silvia et al., nitive engagement with abstract and semantic information, 2008). As its compound label suggests, however, Openness/ primarily through reasoning, whereas Openness reflects cog- Intellect is not monolithic; it can be divided into subtraits, nitive engagement with perception, fantasy, aesthetics, and which may have differential relations to creativity. Given the centrality of this domain of personality to creative function- ing, it is crucial to investigate more finely differentiated asso- Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Scott ciations of its component traits with various forms of Barry Kaufman, Positive Psychology Center, 3701 Market St., Philadelphia, creativity. PA 19104. Email: [email protected]. Openness,2 Intellect, and Creativity Kaufman, Quilty, Grazioplene, et249 al. emotions (DeYoung, Grazioplene, & Peterson, 2012). These We hypothesized, therefore, that whereas Openness should factors appear to be genetically as well as phenotypically dis- predict creative achievement in the arts, Intellect should tinct (DeYoung, 2014; DeYoung et al., 2007). predict creative achievement in the sciences. We focused on The identification of separable Openness and Intellect creative achievement—that is, formally recognized creative factors enabled the development of scales specifically production—rather than on creativity more generally. This designed to measure these factors, which are included in the focus has the advantage of allowing assessment in terms of life Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS; DeYoung et al., 2007). (Previ- history; however, it is possible that our results might not ous Big Five measures labeled Openness to Experience or entirely generalize to day-to-day creativity that does not lead to Intellect typically measured the same general Openness/ publicly recognized products. It is also possible that traits Intellect factor; DeYoung, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005.) Open- related to hard work and perseverance, such as Conscientious- ness and Intellect demonstrate discriminant validity for many ness, might influence creative achievement independently of phenomena, including IQ, academic performance, industrial Openness and Intellect, and we were able to examine that performance, mental health, and brain function (for a review, possibility as well. see DeYoung, 2014). Consistent with our hypothesis, S. B. Kaufman (2013a) Investigating Openness and Intellect separately appears investigated the relations among a four-factor model of promising in the attempt to clarify the association of person- Openness/Intellect and creative achievement in the arts and ality with creativity, particularly in the arts and sciences. sciences among a sample of English sixth-form students Nusbaum and Silvia (2011a) found that Openness significantly (equivalent to the final 2 years of American high school). Two predicted total creative achievement but not fluid reasoning, factors relating to Openness (affective engagement and aes- whereas Intellect predicted fluid reasoning but not total cre- thetic engagement) were significantly associated with creative ative achievement. This result might suggest a unique relation achievement in the arts, whereas two factors relating to Intel- between Openness and creativity. However, this research did lect (explicit cognitive ability and intellectual engagement) not distinguish between different domains of creative achieve- were significantly associated with creative achievement in the ment, and their assessment of creative achievement was sciences. weighted heavily toward artistic creativity. The present study reexamined these data using the BFAS Both the differing trait content of Openness and Intellect Openness and Intellect scales and also extended the analysis to and theories of their underlying mechanisms suggest that creative achievement in three additional samples. Because Openness should predict creativity in the arts, but that Intel- Openness and Intellect are correlated subfactors of the same lect should predict creative achievement in the sciences. broader Big Five trait, we used them as simultaneous predic- Openness encompasses artistic interests, whereas Intellect tors in regression to assess their independent contributions to encompasses interest in ideas. The sources of these differ- creative achievement. This procedure is important because if ences may lie in basic cognitive mechanisms. Openness is Openness were correlated with achievement in the sciences or associated with cognitive processes like implicit learning that Intellect with achievement in the arts, this might simply be due are involved in the detection of correlational patterns in to the variance shared between the two aspects, rather than to sensory experience. Intellect, in contrast, is associated with an independent association. Two additional strengths make this cognitive processes like working memory that aid in analyz- study more than a mere replication of S. B. Kaufman’s (2013a) ing causal and logical patterns (DeYoung, 2014; S. B. prior work. First, Kaufman (2013a) did not specifically test the Kaufman et al., 2010). prediction of creative achievement by Openness and Intellect, S. B. Kaufman (2013a) placed these findings in the dual- but rather focused on a four-factor solution of the Openness/ process theoretical framework (Epstein, 1991, 2014; Evans, Intellect domain, which is less well established than the basic 2008; Evans & Frankish, 2009; Kahneman, 2011; S. B. distinction between Openness and Intellect. Second, Kaufman Kaufman, 2011, 2013a; Stanovich & West, 2000). Type 1 pro- (2013a) analyzed a sample of adolescents at a very selective cesses consist of a variety of (not necessarily correlated) pro- school (which could restrict the range of relevant variables), cesses that operate automatically and are not dependent on whereas the present analyses include a diverse set of adult input from high-level control systems, including affect, intu- samples, yielding a much larger and more representative total ition, implicit learning, latent inhibition, and spreading activa- sample. tion among learned associations (Evans, 2008; Stanovich & A further