Characteristics of Creative People

Affective/Emotional-Social Creative Individuals

• A special kind of perception
• More spontaneous and expressive
• Unfrightened by the unknown, the mysterious, the puzzling; often attracted to it
• Resolution of dichotomies: selfish and unselfish; duty and pleasure; work and play; strong ego and egolessness
• Able to integrate
• More self-accepting; lack fear of own emotions, impulses, and thoughts
• Have more of themselves available for use, for enjoyment, for creative purposes; waste less of their time and energy protecting themselves
• Involved in more peak experiences, integration within the person and between the person and the world, and transcendence
• Capacity to be puzzled
• Ability to concentrate
• Ability to experience self as creative, as the originator of one's acts
• Willingness to be born every day
• Ability to accept conflict and tension rather than avoiding them
• Courage to let go of certainties, to be different, to be concerned with truth, to be certain of one's own feelings and thoughts and trust them
• Identify closely with the feelings and expectations of others
• Less repressed and defensive
• More curious
• More maturely autonomous and less dependent on views of others

Physical/Sensing Creative Individuals

• Openness to experience, new ideas
• An internal locus of evaluation
• An ability to toy with elements and concepts
• Perceiving freshly
• Concern with outside and inside worlds
• Ability to defer closure and judgment
• Skilled performance of the traditional arts
• High theoretical and aesthetic values

Intuitive Creative Individuals

• More intuitive and open to admitting turbulent inner conflicts
• Have their energy field accessible
• Have ability to tap and release unconscious and preconscious thought
• Are able to withstand being thought of as abnormal or eccentric
• Are more sensitive
• Have a richer fantasy life and greater involvement in daydreaming
• Are more enthusiastic and impulsive
• Often show abilities of synesthesia (e.g., tasting color, seeing sound, hearing smells)
• Show different brain wave patterns than the less creative, especially during creative activity
• Get excited and involved when confronted with novelty of design, music, or ideas (less creative people get suspicious and hostile)
• When given a new solution to a problem, get enthused, suggest other ideas (less creative students analyze the defect rather than explore potentials)

Sources: The listed characteristics are from the research of Albert, 1998; Amabile, 1990; Fromm, 1959; Guilford, 1959; Heath, 1983; Koestler, 1964; Krippner, 1968; MacKinnon, 1964; Martindale, 1975; Maslow, 1959; May, 1959; Maynard, 1970; Miliora, 1987; Parnes, 1967; Rogers, 1959; Runco and Nemiro, 1994; Schaefer, 1970; Sternberg and Lubart, 1993; Taylor & Williams, 1966; Torrance, 1962; Williams, 1968.