Introduction
Personality from the Perspective of Affective Neuroscience
The concept of Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) is based on the assumption that the evolutionarily oldest part of personality (stable patterns of experience and behaviour) is constituted by the so-called primary emotional systems, meaning that differences in their strength are largely the source of individual differences in personality traits (Davis & Panksepp, 2011; Montag & Panksepp, 2017). Jaak Panksepp identified seven such systems on the basis of experiments involving stimulation of deep subcortical regions of animal brains (Panksepp & Biven, 2021): SEEKING (characterized by euphoric affect and energetic exploration of the environment), RAGE (causing negative affect and aggressive behaviour), FEAR (creating negative affect from which individuals wish to flee), LUST (sexual excitement leading to one of the most positive affective experiences), CARE (the urge to provide close ones with care, accompanied by pleasant feelings), PANIC (psychological pain caused by loss/separation from loved ones), and PLAY (pleasure from "rough-housing," important for the development of social skills).
Personality and Creativity
A considerable number of studies have been devoted to the effort to answer the question: "What kind of people are creative?" or to identify which personality traits are associated with creativity (the ability to produce original works, artefacts, methods, or ideas). The Big Five model is frequently used, and it appears that creativity is consistently associated with Openness and sporadically also with Extraversion (a review of studies as well as a current replication can be found in Jirásek & Sudzina, 2020). Attention has also been paid to Eysenck's (1993) theory, according to which creativity should be characteristic of above-average intelligent individuals who also score highly on Psychoticism — but although the theory initially gained empirical support, several subsequent attempts at replication failed (Milton et al., 2008).
However, only two studies examined the relationship of creativity to personality traits according to the ANPS model: Reuter et al. (2005) focused on SEEKING and found that its level is related (even after controlling for intelligence) to performance on the Inventiveness subtest of the Berlin Intelligence Structure Test — similar to divergent thinking tests. Milton et al. (2008) also investigated other dimensions and found that SEEKING is positively related to creativity as assessed by a self-report questionnaire and to performance in divergent thinking (but only among individuals who acquired English as a second language). CARE was also positively associated with both measures of creativity, and PLAY was related to its level as expressed by self-assessment.
Aim
In this study we build on findings regarding relationships between creativity and personality traits based on the ANPS model. However, by employing different methods, we further aim to verify whether these findings can be generalized to "tangible" manifestations of creativity in everyday life. Specifically, we focus on two areas: the amount of regularly performed creative activities (regardless of quality) and the achieved success in creative domains (the production of valuable works). We hypothesize that both aspects of creativity should be positively related to SEEKING, but we also wish to explore relationships with other dimensions — based on the work of Milton et al. (2008), relationships with PLAY and CARE are also possible to expect.
Methods
The study involved 200 participants (127 women) with a mean age of 28.22 years (SD = 10.26 years). Of these, 113 had completed secondary education at most, and 87 had obtained at least a bachelor's degree. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling via university email and social media. Data collection took place through an electronically distributed questionnaire from 11 February 2022 to 23 February 2022. Participation was voluntary, participants were informed of the possibility to withdraw at any time, and all data were processed anonymously. To operationalize the variables, we used the following questionnaires translated into Slovak:
- Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS), which assess 7 personality dimensions — six of them are based on primary emotional systems, while the authors excluded LUST and added Spirituality (Davis & Panksepp, 2011). Participants rate their degree of agreement with relevant statements using a 4-point Likert scale. The subscales for individual dimensions achieved good to excellent levels of reliability: SEEKING (ɑ = 0.81), FEAR (ɑ = 0.91), CARE (ɑ = 0.79), RAGE (ɑ = 0.86), PLAY (ɑ = 0.82), SADNESS (ɑ = 0.83), Spirituality (ɑ = 0.89).
- Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviours (BICB), which assesses the extent of everyday creative behaviour. Participants indicate by YES/NO whether they engaged in each of 34 creative activities (e.g., "I wrote a short story") in the past 12 months (M. Beaty, 2007). The questionnaire achieved a good level of reliability (ɑ = 0.77).
- Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ), which assesses the level of achieved success in 10 domains of creative activity using a scale that expresses social recognition (e.g., for Music from 0 to 7 — "My compositions have been reviewed in national publications") (Carson et al., 2005). The questionnaire achieved a good level of reliability (ɑ = 0.78).
Results
Data were processed in Jamovi 1.6.23. Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. Given the distribution of variables, we used Spearman's Rho to calculate correlation coefficients. The level of statistical significance was reduced to p < 0.0033 (0.05/15) using Bonferroni correction.
In line with expectations, the personality dimension SEEKING was weakly and positively related to both creative behaviour (rs = 0.29, p < 0.001) and creative achievement (rs = 0.21, p = 0.002). All correlation values are presented in Table 2. A moderate positive relationship was also found between creative behaviour and creative achievement (rs = 0.54, p < 0.001). Other relationships at the specified significance level were not statistically significant.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, we examined the relationship between creativity and personality traits. Much work has been devoted to the Big Five model (currently perhaps the most popular), which is based on statistical analysis of words that people use to describe the personality of themselves and others (Goldberg, 1990). We, however, focused on the ANPS model (relatively underutilized in this area), which captures the most primitive foundations of personality arising from emotionality (Davis et al., 2003; Davis & Panksepp, 2011; Montag & Panksepp, 2017).
The results supported previous findings regarding the relationship between creativity and SEEKING (Milton et al., 2008; Reuter et al., 2005). Since the SEEKING dimension itself is represented in the questionnaire also by items related to creativity (e.g., pleasure from solving problems), finding a correlation with creativity (also measured by self-report methods) might be considered trivial — Reuter et al. (2005) therefore emphasize the importance of operationalizing creativity as performance on ability tests in this regard. However, it is necessary to distinguish between different self-report scales of creativity: while some use items that track how participants perceive themselves (e.g., "I don't consider myself an artistic or creative type" (Ashton and Lee, 2009, according to: Jirásek & Sudzina, 2020)), both scales used in our research are anchored in objectively assessable behaviours.
In line with the stated aim, the previous findings were thus generalized to real manifestations of creative behaviour in everyday life. We consider this important because performance on ability tests only partially predicts them — for example, divergent thinking correlates with creative success at the level of r = 0.47 (Carson et al., 2005), and the ability to solve insight problems (considered a test of creative problem-solving) is not related to creative success or behaviour (Beaty et al., 2014).
Regarding potential follow-up research, given that emotions form the core of personality traits in the ANPS model, it would be appropriate to supplement them with additional variables related to emotionality: the SEEKING system itself stimulates various types of experience and behaviour — apart from creativity, also voracious consumption or narcissistic fantasizing about one's own importance (Panksepp & Biven, 2021). The specific form that relationships between primary emotional systems and more complex psychological processes take could be influenced by so-called emotional granularity (Barrett, 2017) — the ability to form more differentiated forms of emotions that direct behaviour in a more specific manner: In the case of SEEKING, this could involve curiosity, enthusiasm, ambition, courage, rebellion... in contrast to a "vaguer" euphoria.
In this context, it should be noted that the concept of emotional granularity stems from Lisa Barrett's (2014) Conceptual Act Theory, which radically denies the existence of discrete emotions: According to this theory, only the so-called core affect exists in nature, characterized by the dimensions of pleasantness and intensity, and emotions are concepts formed by its categorization using past experiences (by analogy: Violets exist physically, but a person can categorize them as flowers, food, or weeds). However, most experts disagree with such a radical stance (Ekman, 2016), and although a synthesis of these perspectives is not yet in sight, Panksepp suggested that they may be complementary: His approach demonstrates that individuals are born equipped with a set of discrete emotions, but the emotional life of adults is characterized by variability and the presence of more complex emotions that constructivist approaches may appropriately describe (Panksepp, 2007; Panksepp & Biven, 2021).
Author: Mgr. Filip Jendrol
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