The Relationship between Personality and Creative Self-Beliefs at Different Levels of Personality Hierarchy

Abstract

In recent decades, research has shown that one set of individual factors contributing to creative self-beliefs are personality traits, with openness showing the strongest relationship. However, these associations have been studied at higher levels of the personality hierarchy and mostly in non-musician samples. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between personality (measured at factor and facet levels) and two types of creative self-beliefs, trait-like creative self-efficacy (tCSE) and creative personal identity (CPI), in a sample of a cappella singers. A total of 128 individuals (64% women) participated in the study. Participants were members of 18 conveniently sampled traditional Croatian a cappella groups. Personality factors and facets were measured with the BFI-2 questionnaire (Soto & John, 2017), while creative self-beliefs were measured with the Short Scale of Creative Self (Karwowski et al., 2018). At the factor level, openness had the highest correlation with both tCSE and CPI. At the facet level, the highest correlations with tCSE were found for creative imagination, an openness facet, and energy level, an extraversion facet, while with CPI for all openness facets, creative imagination, aesthetic sensitivity and intellectual curiosity. In linear regression analyses, the only significant predictors of CPI were openness at the factor level and creative imagination at the facet level. Significant predictors of tCSE were openness and neuroticism at the factor level and creative imagination and sociability at the facet level. Personality facets explained more variance in both types of creative self-beliefs than factors.