The creative personality or general factor of personality? Integrating the big five personality traits in relation to creativity

Creativity has been found to be a fundamental factor in innovation and generating new knowledge, and it is influenced by personality. The present study innovatively tested the personality-creativity relationship by resorting to the General Factor of Personality (GFP). Multiple measures were used for a comprehensive and unbiased estimation of the target relationship while controlling for the common method bias. The results showed that the GFP was consistently associated with multiple creativity indicators, with observed correlations above .60 for questionnaire-based measures and latent estimates ranging from .31 to .40 for performance-based abilities. Based on the findings, the present study indicates a stable association between the GFP and several core components of creativity. Additionally, the present study found that the GFP correlated with creative traits (.75) more strongly than creative abilities (.36), based on which we proposed a division of creative traits vs creative abilities. The reason for all found correlations can be attributed to the GFP being the most comprehensive personality structure encapsulating social characteristics, which is associated with multiple components of creativity. Suggestions for practical implications and future studies are discussed.