Development and Validation of the Creative Personality and Thinking Styles Scale: A Comprehensive Measure for Assessing Creativity-Related Individual Differences

Background: Creativity is the process of generating contextually useful new outcomes by uniquely reconfiguring existing knowledge and information. While there are measures that examine the multifaceted nature of creativity, comprehensive measures that holistically assess creativity remain underdeveloped. This study developed the Creative Personality and Thinking Styles Scale (C-PETS), which measures personality, thinking styles, and creativity-related motivation. Based on the investment theory of creativity, the scale focuses on the aforementioned three elements that can be measured using psychological scales. Methods: The initial C-PETS item pool was developed by Psychology-related field experts with doctorates, who referenced existing scales that measure creativity-related concepts. Exploratory factor analysis using maximum likelihood extraction with Promax rotation was conducted to examine the underlying factor structure.Results: Exploratory factor analysis involving 572 participants yielded a five-factor, 16-item scale comprising “broad thinking,” “thorough thinking,” “information manipulation,” “challenge pursuit,” and “ambiguity tolerance.” Confirmatory factor analysis involving 944 participants showed a good fit (CFI = .95, RMSEA = .05), and the higher-order model was also supported. Examination of construct validity revealed significant correlations with the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (r = .75), Aesthetic Experience Scale (r = .30), and Diffuse Association Test (r = .18). Additionally, a positive correlation was observed with educational background, indicating that the C-PETS effectively measures the multifaceted nature of creativity.Conclusions: The C-PETS represents a valuable contribution to creativity assessment by providing a comprehensive measure of creativity-related personality traits, thinking styles, and motivational factors.